The Only True Lords
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, eventually. Harry accidentally bonds several Slytherins, including Snape and Draco, with him as their Lord. It's going to be a long journey from putting his foot in it all the time to at least trying to be a good one.
1. Accidentally Yours

**Title: **The Only True Lords

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Eventual (very eventual) Harry/Draco, canon het pairings

**Warnings: **Angst, violence, AU of the end of DH

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **Harry ends up accidentally bonding himself as Lord to several Slytherins after the Battle of Hogwarts, including Snape and Draco Malfoy. It's a long journey from putting his foot in it all the time to at least _trying _to be a good one.

**Author's Notes: **The story's title comes from a quote by the fantasy and science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin in her essay "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie": "The Lords of Elfland are true lords, the only true lords, the kind that do not exist on this earth: their lordship is the outward sign or symbol of real inward greatness." I became interested in writing a story that would chronicle the transformation of Harry into one of those lords. This is going to be a fairly long story, and not all that fast-paced.

**The Only True Lords**

_Chapter One—Accidentally Yours_

Harry became aware of something wrong when he was dancing around the Great Hall with Voldemort, trying to keep his eyes on him and work out everything the Elder Wand would let him do, and what it _wouldn't _let him do. He really couldn't afford to be distracted, and it wasn't like he wanted to be.

But it wasn't every day that you thought you saw someone come back from the dead.

Harry took a quick step sideways and turned his head before Voldemort could come around to keep up with him, and yes, there Snape was, his shoulders hunched and his wand moving as he stood in front of several Slytherin students. Harry saw Draco Malfoy there, and Pansy Parkinson—when had _she _come back in?—and some others that stood too far back for him to recognize their faces. Harry had no idea what Snape was casting. Some sort of protection spell for students, he hoped, and not a curse that would make them all super-powerful and able to kill Harry with a single bite.

Voldemort turned to see what he was looking at, and if Harry was surprised to see that Snape had survived Nagini's bite, _he _appeared stupefied. He stared from face to face, and when Snape turned and looked at him from under a curtain of dark hair, he lifted the Elder Wand.

"I should have known," he said, in a hissing whisper that Harry thought would crack the walls, and started to cast.

Harry had no idea what it was, but it didn't matter. If he was right about the Elder Wand and its allegiance to one master, it wouldn't want to hurt Harry, but it would have absolutely no compunction about hurting anyone else.

"_No!_" Harry screamed, and sprinted forwards, towards the Slytherin table that Snape and the other students were standing in front of.

There was too much ground to cover, and he wasn't going to get there before the spell took effect, he thought as he ran. But he could do something else. He cast a Tripping Jinx at Voldemort's legs, distracting him enough that he faltered in the chant. By the time he began again—never turning away from Snape, as though it was more important to punish him than to kill Harry, just _like _the arrogant bastard—Harry had got between the Slytherins and Voldemort.

Snape was snarling at Harry as he turned his back. Harry ignored him. Sure, Snape had been more decent than Harry knew and friends with his mum. He had still conspired with Dumbledore to make sure that Harry would march to his death. It wasn't _Harry's _fault that they'd been wrong and he'd survived.

Voldemort finished the spell with a single, long hiss. Harry couldn't understand it, and he seriously doubted it was actually Parseltongue. He focused on the Elder Wand instead, that shook and trembled in Voldemort's fist as if trying to tear itself free.

Either it didn't manage before the spell flew, or it didn't care that much about not hitting Harry after all. The curse flew out, coiled and arched back on itself like a picture of a tapeworm that Harry had seen in a book last year, and bright blue and flashing yellow. The sight of it made Harry feel sick.

_What would happen if the Elder Wand tried to spare me but not Snape? _

Harry raised a Shield Charm without thinking about it. It had to be huge, and curved back, bright and silver, to protect Snape and the Slytherin kids. That didn't matter. He'd done it before the curse had time to hit.

The curse collided with the shield. Harry saw it spark and fizzle, and thought for a long second that it would die down.

Then the shield collapsed and blended with the curse. Harry saw the tapeworm-shape turn bright silver and rear up like a snake, but he didn't have time to look at it further, because Voldemort had started casting something else, and Harry turned to face him and yelled, "_EXPELLIARMUS!_" as loud as he could.

The Elder Wand flew out of Voldemort's hand, there was a look on his face that Harry had never seen before, and then an explosion of light and heat caught Harry around the legs. He cried out in spite of himself, because it was just a little pain and he'd had worse, but it was so _unexpected. _Like someone had splashed boiling oil on him.

And the light was playing all around him, expanding outwards, and it hit Voldemort as the Elder Wand soared above him. Voldemort didn't have time to run, and Harry wasn't sure that he would have anyway. Probably wanted to stay there and make sure Harry was actually dead.

_Both of us are going to be disappointed, _Harry thought, as Voldemort's body flared white and black, the bones showing through his skin and his organs shivering as though someone was shaking them in place, and then he had to shut his eyes and go away for a while as the pain expanded until it was all the world.

* * *

"Wake _up_, you stupid boy."

Harry blinked. He wasn't dead?

No, he wasn't. Because he was sure, after his walk through the Forest with the Resurrection Stone, that he would have been with his mum and dad and Sirius and Remus, not lying there on the floor of the Great Hall with Snape bending over him. He could see the colors of sunset on the ceiling behind Snape's head.

Harry sat up slowly. His body felt strange, as though the pain was lingering in his legs and arms, ready to burst out again when he moved them. But he swung them easily enough, and he finally stood, braced against someone who turned out to be Ron. Harry hugged him, hard, with one arm around his shoulders. They hadn't had time to do that since Voldemort came in with Hagrid carrying Harry and proclaimed him dead.

Someone crashed into him from the other side and said into his ear, in a voice too deep for sadness, "_Harry_." And Harry hugged Hermione too, and turned to face the place where Voldemort had stood.

He was pretty sure that for him to be alive, Voldemort had to be dead, but he still half-shuddered when he saw the pile of dust in the center of the Great Hall. It was sparkling grey, like a duller version of the color the spell had turned as the Shield Charm and Voldemort's curse collided, and formed a person-shaped outline on the stone. Harry swallowed, feeling a little sick, and turned to look at Hermione.

"What _happened_?" he asked her.

"She is not the one who can tell you."

Snape's voice was clipped. Harry turned to face him with all sorts of emotions jumping up and down in his chest. He could understand Snape a lot better—but he had nearly died—but Snape had survived—but Harry was just sick and tired of taking shit after he had _walked to his death_—but Snape had been on their side all along. Maybe it would all right if he asked about the spell and nothing else.

Snape stood there with his arms folded, staring at him. His face was grey. Harry assumed the Slytherin students must have died and looked around, but there was a huddled clump over against one wall that included Parkinson, Zabini, and Goyle, and Malfoy stood in his parents' arms, a forlorn little triangle, by the benches of the Slytherin table. So Harry turned around and faced Snape with the knowledge that _something _must have gone wrong, but at least he hadn't killed anyone he didn't intend to kill.

"Do you know what you have done?" Snape whispered.

Harry braced himself against his best friends' arms, and shook his head. His muscles trembled a little, and he wanted to lie down, but he also wanted to hear about the latest disaster so he could deal with it, preferably _before _he went to sleep the way he probably would any minute now. "Obviously not, or I wouldn't have asked what happened. Sir," he added, since it looked as though Snape might forget about that promise to his mum just because.

Snape shut his eyes and turned away for a second. Harry looked at him. He didn't see any burns on his shoulders, or ragged tearing of his robes, or even a bite or blood on the side of his neck where Nagini had attacked him. Harry sneered to himself. Snape didn't look all that hurt, then—nothing to be upset about.

"The Shield Charm combined with the curse that was meant to make me obedient to him and bind me as his slave," Snape whispered. "He did not dark risk the Imperius Curse, not now that he must have known I could resist his mental probing with Occlumency."

Harry just nodded, not that Snape was looking at him. At least now he knew what the original curse had been for, and it made sense that Voldemort would cast it at Snape. He always did have more rage than sense. "All right. What happened when they combined?"

Snape squeezed his eyes shut. Then he said, "You made the rest of us—the people you stood in front of, me and my students—your slaves."

"That's impossible," Harry said, after a second of startled silence. He could hear Hermione drawing her breath in, but it sounded like the sound she made when she was about to start a tirade, not a gasp of surprise, so he reckoned she didn't agree with Snape. "That was what the original curse was supposed to do. How can the combination of the Shield Charm and the curse do the same thing? The Shield Charm would have changed it."

Snape swung back on him. He raised an eyebrow, maybe because Harry didn't back away, but since Harry couldn't back away at the moment without falling on his arse, he decided that was a stupid reason for Snape to be impressed.

"Who knew?" Snape whispered. "You know some of the magical theory behind the combination of spells after all."

Harry just stared at him, and snorted. Snape was being _stupid. _He knew Harry had been good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, and that he'd survived the last year. He was delaying.

Snape raised his hand as if he would fend Harry off, and then let it drop wearily back to his side. His face looked dusty. Perhaps, Harry thought, he would have started crying, but of course that wasn't a good option here in the middle of the Great Hall, in front of all these people, with everyone staring at them.

"The Shield Charm was a protection spell," Snape went on, into what sounded like a spreading pool of silence. Harry grimaced a little. That was only happening because other people had stopped talking and were craning their necks. He wasn't going to let Snape blame him for attracting attention _this _time. He was the one who'd chosen to make an announcement like this. "The curse that the Dark Lord cast at me was meant to make him my Lord in truth. And you combined them both, and made yourself our lord." He grimaced and turned away, so sharply that his hair swished across the air like a knife. "To defend us, to protect us, I suppose. Are you _happy, _Potter?"

"Like I knew he would do that," Harry said, shaking his head. "Like I knew that you could resist it somehow."

Snape stiffened and stared at him over his shoulder. "I could not have resisted the curse."

"Then what's the problem?" Harry tried to shift forwards a little, but his legs wobbled. No, he was definitely going to fall down without Ron and Hermione there. He knew he was breathing a little fast, he knew he probably didn't sound normal, that he sounded stupid, but Snape was acting like Harry wanted to be—what? In charge of a bunch of Slytherins? He didn't even know what being a Lord _meant_. "You're alive. It's better to be alive, and whatever I had to do to help you escape—"

"I would rather be dead," Snape said, every word carrying a hiss, "than the slave of a third master."

Harry nodded to the huddled Slytherins along the wall, and then at Malfoy. He had turned around in his parents' arms and was watching, his eyes so wide that they looked like they would devour his face. "And what about them? Don't they get a say in it? Would you rather be dead than—I don't know, indebted to me?" he asked Parkinson. She had been the one who had said they should throw him to Voldemort, after all.

Parkinson's eyes were tearless as they focused on him, but Harry didn't think that would endure for long. She shook her head. "You don't know what this means," she whispered, and turned her arm towards him.

Harry thought for a second it was her left arm, and she was a Death Eater. Then he saw, from the way she stood, that it must have been the right one. And emblazoned on the skin next to her elbow was a bright shield, silver in the center, with a long, thin green line around it. Harry reckoned it might be a serpent if you squinted, but he was standing too far away, and his eyes were watering too much with tiredness, to see it properly.

"I've marked you?" Harry could hear his voice changing as his emotions all slid away down a long tunnel. All right, he could see why this had upset them. Parkinson probably _hadn't _been a Death Eater. She'd escaped having the Dark Mark. And then Harry came along and did something else instead, and she wasn't free after all.

"Yes," said Parkinson, and she pulled her arm back to her side and closed her eyes.

"And me," Snape said, and Harry had never heard such hatred in his voice. He flinched a little from it, and felt Hermione hug him closer from the side.

"Well, okay," Harry said, and swallowed. He wanted to go to sleep. He wanted to wake up and have this all be a dream. He had never thought he would go straight from killing Voldemort into some other problem. Didn't the hero at least get a few days of rest first?

But maybe because he wasn't really a hero, just someone who had died and then survived because the Elder Wand didn't want to hurt him, he didn't get that option. He shook his head and straightened up instead. "Okay. What do I have to do? Is there any way to break this spell, or disguise the marks, or—" Something occurred to him, and he nearly knocked himself to the floor fumbling for his sleeve. Hermione was the one who pushed it down gently, and Ron was the one who pulled up the sleeve on the right arm, when Harry had been going for his left.

_God, I have Death Eaters on the brain, _Harry thought, as he blinked and breathed and looked.

The shield on his arm was much bigger, and when Harry touched it gingerly, the skin there felt almost metallic. On the points of the silver shield, which was five-sided, were five little green dots. Malfoy and Snape and Parkinson and Zabini and Goyle, Harry thought. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to run away.

He wanted to do lots of things, but he took the time to notice that the serpent around the edges of his shield was as bright as poison, and then he turned back to Snape.

"Is there any way to break the spell?" he asked.

Snape smiled like a skull. "I doubt it," he whispered. "Such a combination of spells has never happened before, to my knowledge, but others with similar effects _have, _and in each case, there was nothing to do but live with it." He shook his head, and his hair swung again. Harry wondered absently if Nagini's bite had destroyed his ability to keep it up or something. "You wanted to protect us. You will—protect us. And you will doubtless be able to command us, as the Dark Lord could do. I would not be surprised to find that you can locate us at a blink, and perhaps make our Marks burn, as he did." A pause, and Snape closed his eyes. "Further tasks must await the discovering."

Harry just nodded, because he didn't think that he could do anything else. He looked back at the Slytherins, to find that Malfoy was the only one watching him. The others just leaned on their friends the way he leaned on Ron and Hermione, as if they were tired to death.

And Malfoy's eyes were terrified.

Harry swallowed and turned back towards Snape again. "Fine. I'm going to—I'm going to rest and think, and see what I can come up with."

Snape bowed to him. _Bowed _to him. Harry felt some combination of bile and a hysterical giggle working its way up his throat, and forcing it down again took more strength than it had to face Voldemort. "Of course, my lord," Snape said. "It's not as though this is our future and our lives that you're talking about and proposing to put off dealing with until later. Nothing as important as that."

Harry turned away. "You don't want to call me that again," he said over his shoulder to Snape, "and I don't want you to. You don't need to bow to me. You don't need to obey me."

"You don't understand."

That was Lucius Malfoy's voice. Harry turned to face him, too. His body was shaking, he realized distantly. He would have thought it was fever if that was possible, instead of just fear and anger and—he didn't even have a name for the emotions that rolled through him. He had thought he was free now, of the prophecy and the burden it had laid on him. Another one, another one he thought he could hate more, since it made him a _master, _had replaced it.

"You don't understand," Lucius repeated, his voice low and his face inflexible. Harry thought he could see Lucius's hand digging into Draco's shoulder, but since Draco turned away and hid his face again immediately afterwards, he really wasn't sure. "There is no breaking such a bond between Lord and vassal. You are, in multiple ways, responsible for them. You might command them not to obey you, but that would still be commanding them. They cannot act against you. They will need to know your will, not because they want to, but because that is what a Lord does. You will have to protect them."

Harry took a swaying step away from Ron and Hermione. He felt Ron trying to restrain him, saying something in his ear about how Hermione would find out about Lords and they could tell whether Malfoy was telling the truth that way, but he couldn't listen. "What if I just asked you to kill me here and now?" he asked. "That would break the bond, wouldn't it? That would mean Draco is set free?"

He heard Snape hiss behind him, and didn't ask why. Maybe he could have found out why, if he had asked. He didn't care. He didn't want to _command. _He didn't want to have any contact with the Slytherins ever again, unless they needed him to testify at a trial or he was going to thank Narcissa Malfoy for saving his life. He just wanted to go away and live out the rest of his life, or at least drop senseless on a bed and remain so for a few hours.

"I cannot," Lucius said. "I told you. This is—this is not what the Dark Lord did with the Dark Marks." His voice became low and charged, and no wonder, Harry thought. It wasn't as though he _wanted _to talk about being a Death Eater in front of a bunch of people who had either been Death Eaters themselves or suspected it all along about Lucius. "This is something else. This is a Lord bond, and I cannot act against the Lord who wards my son." He raised Draco's arm, which was so limp Harry wouldn't have been surprised to see Draco fall in a dead faint, and turned it towards Harry. The mark looked like Pansy's, Harry thought, and he stared blankly at it, wondering what he was supposed to see that was different.

"This is a shield," Lucius whispered. "You stood between him and danger. You saved his life. I saw it. I _cannot _act against you. I _cannot_."

Harry rubbed his forehead. In retrospect, he thought it was probably kind of stupid to have asked for that, but he was tired of being mature and responsible and thinking about what was stupid. He wanted to go to _bed_.

He turned his back on the Malfoys, too, and turned to Ron and Hermione, and said, "Look, I want to get some sleep. Can you make sure I'm not disturbed?"

Ron, his eyes full of compassion, nodded. "Sure, mate. But I think…" He stooped down and picked something up. "This is yours."

Harry stared at the Elder Wand, and shut his eyes. "Shit," he said succinctly.

The only good thing he could think about the situation was that he might be able to use the Elder Wand to repair his own holly one. But not in front of these people. Not in front of all of them.

He did take the hawthorn wand out of his waistband, where someone had stuck it, probably after he fell, and tossed it back to the Malfoys. Narcissa was the one who caught it, since Draco still had his head turned away.

"Thanks," Harry said tiredly, and turned away. "It's yours now."

He managed to make it up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, and to his bed in a corner. He curled up with the Elder Wand throbbing like a broken limb next to him, and the stupid, _stupid _bloody shield mark on his arm trembling and pulsing like a second heart.

_I never wanted this. I thought—I thought it was done. I thought no one would ask anything more of me after I defeated Voldemort, at least for a while. Wasn't that what I was supposed to do?_

And then he drifted off to sleep, because there was no one who could answer him. Maybe no one ever again.


	2. Bruised

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—Bruised_

"What am I going to do?"

Harry asked the question simply, leaning back against his pillows and staring at the wall. Ron and Hermione had finally come up to the Gryffindor Tower bedroom to get him after he had slept the rest of the day, that night, and until noon the next day. At least they'd brought a tray of food from the kitchens. Harry cracked open one of the scones and used a Warming Charm to melt the butter until he could dip the scone half in.

"You have your wand back," Ron said, in the tone of voice that said he was anxious to delay talking about everything else for as long as possible.

Harry glanced down and shrugged a little. "Yeah. I thought—well, the Elder Wand is so powerful. It can probably repair anything. And it repaired _my _wand." He gave the holly wood a little pat.

Unfortunately, that moved his right arm so that he could see the stupid shield mark again. Harry sneered and turned back to his lunch-breakfast. He didn't want to think about the Lordship bond again except in the context of a solution.

Hermione coughed and tugged a huge book from behind her. Harry wasn't surprised to see that it was covered in shiny, burnished leather, as though someone had spent a long time handling it. He nodded and swallowed the hot bread and butter in his mouth. "What does it say about Lordship bonds?"

"It says they're bloody permanent," Ron muttered. "Which they are."

"I didn't really think I could break it," Harry reminded him. "I just want to know how I can live with it, what I have to do." This time, he took a huge gulp of pumpkin juice, both because Ron was opening his mouth to continue the argument and because Hermione was opening _hers _like she was dying to talk.

"Most Lords are really committed to caring for their people, Harry," Hermione said, rubbing her fingers over the book and then flipping to what looked like the first of several floating bubbles that marked her place in it. "Voldemort perverted that when he used the Dark Marks. That's where he got the idea, but he did everything that a Lord isn't supposed to do. Tortured his people, made them commit crimes, and made sure they were the ones who took responsibility for anything they did."

Harry bristled. He'd been relaxing as Hermione talked, because he had wondered if the stupid bond would _require _him to torture someone, and he refused, but this didn't sound much better. "I'm not taking the responsibility for any crimes Malfoy commits."

"Not in that sense," Hermione said, and rolled her eyes at him. "They could still commit crimes on their own, and their Lord would appear in court to answer for them, and pay fines if they were poor, but he wouldn't have to serve Azkaban time or anything. I told you, a proper Lord bond doesn't have anywhere near that level of control. What it means is that if they do something on your orders, you have to stand up for them."

"What if I don't intend to ever issue any bloody orders?" Harry muttered.

"You know what some of the Slytherins might do," Hermione said, staring at him. "Maybe they won't. This was the war, and we were all kids, and some of the things they did…I know they didn't have any choice." From the stupefied look on Ron's face, Harry thought, she hadn't discussed that thought process with _him_. "But what if they do something wrong after the war? Curse someone? _Threaten _to curse someone, that's a better example. You could just appear in court if they cursed someone. But if they told you they were going to do it, are you saying you wouldn't order them to stop?"

Harry glared at the tray on his lap. Unfortunately, the cheese and toast that were left failed to combust in crackling green flames the way he had pictured them doing. "Fuck."

Hermione said, "_Language_," in a way that reminded Harry so much of Professor McGonagall he almost looked around the room for her. Instead, Hermione picked up the book and cleared her throat loudly. "A Lordship bond has to flow both ways, though, or it's not a proper bond. The vassals—"

"Must you?" Harry demanded in a low voice he hadn't thought he was capable of using until he heard it.

"Yes, I must," Hermione said, and gave him one of those looks she had given him several times during fifth year, sympathetic and hard at once. "Because this is what you're going to have to live with from now on, and I don't want someone taking advantage of their superior knowledge and trying to hurt you."

"I don't think any of the Slytherins _can _hurt him, now," Ron piped up, swinging his legs back and forth. "That's the way Mum said Lordship bonds worked yesterday, anyway."

"I was thinking more of the Ministry," Hermione said. "But this is the way that it works. The vassals—" She paused, but Harry only nodded. He wouldn't get anywhere by denying reality. Hermione beamed and continued reading. "The vassals need to serve the Lord. They traditionally fight at his side in battle, act as his seconds during duels, make sure that he doesn't get exposed to danger from enemies who the vassals are able to deal with, and also sometimes donate money to him. Most of the time, though, the Lord is the stronger and richer wizard, so that only happens if the Lord needs a lot of funds at once. And he always pays it back."

Harry nodded. Of course he would. The thought of profiting from someone else's money was horrible in the first place, and he wouldn't want a fortune that was probably tainted with Muggle-hunting. "Make sure he doesn't get exposed to danger from enemies he can't deal with," he said. "Does that mean, I don't know, that Malfoy would have to protect me against his parents if they decided they hated me?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at him. "You already said Mrs. Malfoy helped you in the Forest. And you heard what Lucius said yesterday. He can't move against you, now."

"Not directly," Harry pointed out, thinking of his fifth year, and his second. "But he has a lot of political contacts in the Ministry. What happens if he 'encourages' them to throw me in prison or something?"

Hermione shook her head. "He can't. His son is your vassal now, and just as you have the right to punish your vassals if they disobey you, you could do the same thing to him through them. Keep him from ever seeing Draco again, for example."

Harry recoiled. He was thinking of Draco shut up in a cupboard, his eyes closed and his head bent, and the image was so repulsive that he shoved the tray of food away. "I'm not doing that," he said, loud enough to make the corners of the Tower ring.

"Okay, Harry," Hermione said, and reached out to take his hand.

"It's _wrong_," Harry snarled, and more images of the Dursleys were in his head. Did he have the legal right to starve the Slytherins now, and make them do chores, and tell them they were freaks and keep them from contact with the wizarding world? He found that he was panting, and both Ron and Hermione were staring at him as though he had gone mental. Harry sort of wished he had. It would be easier. "It's _sick_."

"If they curse someone, you would have to punish them," Hermione said quietly. "That's the repayment for you serving as their protection during the trial, and paying fines. The Ministry would waive doing anything—with most crimes, but not murder—because they would know _you _would."

Harry bowed his head. "Well, anyway," he said. "I could take their wands away for a while or something. Not imprison them."

"I think most Lords used whipping," Ron said.

"_Not helping_," Hermione said out of the corner of her mouth, but Harry lifted his head and shook it back and forth hard enough that he felt as though his neck would have snapped.

"Out of the question," he said. "Not acceptable."

"I know, I know, I know," Ron said. "But it's historical precedent, mate." He hesitated, then added, "And I have to say, whipping Malfoy would go a lot towards making up for the things he's done to us."

Harry glared at Ron. "Really not helping," he said, before Hermione could say it. "And I don't—look, I'm feeling protective towards the little git, all right?" That was the only way he could name the urge to strangle Ron with both hands. It ran through the back of his mind in a quicksilver current, part and not part of him. He slumped back into his pillows again with a sigh. "I don't enjoy that. Stop threatening him, so I don't have to feel that."

Ron nodded and patted him on the top of the head. "But you'll have better targets than me, mate. We've already got Howlers denouncing Snape."

"Oh, shit," Harry said, and tried to get out of bed. Hermione pushed the tray back at him and shook her head.

"It's better for you to eat as much as you can before you have to deal with this," she said briskly. "I promise, none of them are going anywhere. There was more than enough room here for everyone, so people just stayed. And I think you'll need your wits about you when you go and talk to Snape."

"Snape first?" Harry asked, taking back the pumpkin juice. "It has to be Snape first?"

"He knows more than any of the others about Lordship bonds," Hermione said quietly. "He lived under Voldemort, and he lived under Dumbledore. I don't think either of them was the same thing, but he can help explain to the others. I think it has to be him first, yes."

Harry nodded wearily and drank. He reckoned he could get through this, the same way he had got through Voldemort stalking him for seven years.

But he did wish that he could have felt what one normal day was like. A day of peace, without this connection.

* * *

"What are we going to _do_?"

The voice soared into the upper registers, as of course it would, being a whinge. Severus kept his back turned as his hands flickered and danced among the ingredients in front of him. A Calming Draught, for himself in this case, was the first potion he had learned to prepare fully on his own. Draco could not distract him. No one had quite dared to keep Severus from his rooms and supply cupboards, and so he would complete this. He _would_.

It did not escape his notice, it never did, that a few additions of the ground leaves in a vial off to the side could turn the Calming Draught to a deadly poison. But the fact was perhaps more—insistent—than it had been. Severus did not touch the leaves. They were there. They would wait.

They were always an option, if it turned out that he hated life more than death.

"But, Professor Snape." Severus heard Draco kick the rungs of the chair he sat in as he leaned forwards. "I can't live under this. And neither can the others," he added, after a slightly shorter pause than usual. At least the war had come closer to making Draco consider other people as important, Severus thought. "It's _unacceptable._"

"So was the Dark Mark," Severus said, and finished the Calming Draught, and cast a Cooling Charm that would render it a bit less effective than usual but finish it far more quickly, and picked up the vial, and drank it off. He kept his eyes closed when it had gone down his throat, and felt some clarity of mind returning. "And so was the war, and the risk of dying, and what you did to survive, and what I did under orders. We lived through it all. We will this."

He ignored what felt like the silent laughter of the vial. Draco was a young man with all his life before him. That escape was for Severus, not for him.

"But it's unacceptable," Draco whispered, and his voice dipped low enough that Severus was reminded, uncontrollably, of how he had felt when he first began to doubt his wisdom in taking the Dark Mark. Draco didn't see himself as a young man with all his life before him. He saw himself as a roped-off slave, compelled to do whatever the halter around his neck suggested. "There must be something we can do, some way of breaking the bond."

"You will have heard the tales of Lordship bonds," Severus said, turning around. The Calming Draught had done its work. He could face Draco now and not snap, or reach out with his wand, which would be by far the more disastrous thing to do. "Did you ever hear of one that was broken?"

"But most of them are deliberate." Draco traced his fingers up and down his right arm, then seemed to realize what he was doing and snatched his hand away. "This one isn't. Don't you think that means we can break it?"

"We would have to understand the exact mechanics of its formation," Severus said, thinking of that moment of the blinding flash, when the Shield Charm had met the Harness Curse, and the immediate metallic pressing on his arm. It seemed to have happened even before the light reached him. "We are unlikely to when it was accidental."

Draco opened his mouth again, and then turned his head sharply as someone knocked at the door into Severus's quarters. Severus moved to answer it, giving a little shudder with his shoulders beneath his robe that he knew Draco would not be subtle enough to catch. If the boy had said "But" one more time, Severus might have lost control of his temper, Calming Draught or no.

The door opened to reveal Potter.

Severus wanted to strike, but the mere thought made the metallic shield on his right arm heat a little. Of course it did. Lordship bonds were founded on loyalty—most of the time—and vassals rebelling against a Lord, even in their thoughts, were disloyal.

Severus had once wondered why the Dark Lord had included no particular spell in the Dark Mark to tell him when one of his slaves plotted treason, but he knew the answer before he took the next breath. The Dark Lord thought it would be more amusing for his Death Eaters to struggle against him, within the limits of the curse that held them, futilely. They might hate, so long as they served.

"What do you want?" Severus asked Potter. The shield heated on his arm again. He did not sound respectful enough for it. Severus did not care. He would bear much pain before he would bear the breaking of his will.

Potter took a deep breath, and Severus took a critical look at him. His sojourn in the wild during the last year had damaged him less than Severus had expected. He was lean, but no more than that, and he bore few visible, new scars. Of course, he would also never be tall. Severus concealed a snort. To have a Lord he could loom over physically was a small comfort, but he would take what he could.

He would do what he could to stay alive and free, until he reached the point where keeping those conditions in balance was hopeless. Then he would choose the second.

He had not always been so determined, but he had served two masters and expected fully to die with the second. He would not serve now.

"…wondered if you knew what we could do."

Severus blinked and came back. At least the bond was not of the kind that compelled the vassal to pay attention to his Lord's every gesture, then. He had missed several of Potter's words.

"About the bond?" he asked, and then wanted to sneer at himself. What else would Potter be asking about?

Potter nodded. "If there's any way to weaken it or break it, then I thought you might know about that. If not, then, well…" Potter braced himself as if against a blow, and then very fast, "You know more than the others do about living with this kind of thing. I was hoping you might help me explain."

Severus's arm felt as if it would burn off this time. He had raised his wand without thinking about it.

Potter turned pale, but didn't draw his own. He did cradle his right arm close to himself, though. Severus narrowed his eyes.

_So the bond also has restrictions from his side? Interesting._

But perhaps not surprising, given that this ridiculous bond had come about in the first place because Potter had jumped in front of them, and raised a Shield Charm, and the resulting mixture of magic had read his intent as protective. Which it was. Utterly bloody inconvenient for the whole lot of them, of course, but real.

Severus rubbed his face. Potter caused more trouble with his good intentions than the Dark Lord had with all his devotion to the Dark Arts.

He lowered his wand and said, "There is no way to break such a purely accidental bond, or I would have told you the way to do it when we were discussing this the _first _time." He hissed the words. Potter was forcing him into another embarrassing confession about his lack of knowledge. The first one had been his choice. This one was not.

Then Draco stepped up from behind him and peered at Potter, and his eyes went so wide that Severus stared at him. He would have known, from the words exchanged, that Potter was at the door.

"You think that you can discard this bond as if it was a Chocolate Frog wrapper?" Draco sneered at Potter. "You'd think that, of course. Slytherin lives mean so _little _to you."

"If that was true, then I would never have bothered pulling you out of that fire," Potter snapped at Draco, and faced Severus again. "There's no way you can think of weakening it, either?"

"I would have already have suggested it if there was," Severus said. "Unless you think that I enjoy being your slave, your pet?"

"I never wanted slaves, either," Potter said, and of course his voice got lower the way it did—the way James's had done—when he was angry. He would think himself in the worse situation, Severus decided. Gryffindors always did. "You think I wanted to be a master? I just wanted—I just wanted to make sure that no more of them died." He shut his eyes and rubbed up and down his arm for a second.

"You're an idiot," Draco said. He winced as though his arm had begun to hurt him, but continued. Severus was glad to see that. If Draco could concentrate through the pain, he who had once been such a coward about it, then there was the chance that he would continue to fight for his freedom once Severus was gone. "This is what happened _to us_. At least on your side of the bond it doesn't actually restrict your freedom."

"I don't fancy being hauled off to court every time one of your tries to curse someone," Potter snapped at him. "Or paying my Galleons over for your actions, either."

Draco went quiet. But his eyes glowed, and Severus knew the plan he had formed as surely as if he was in the boy's head. He might be able to make Potter waste Galleons, if nothing else.

But Draco did not know about the other side of the bond, so Severus spoke to make sure he did. If he wanted to take the risk, then he would, but Severus would not allow him to act in ignorance. "Then you would have to punish us, as required by the bond."

Potter turned eyes gleaming like green glass on him, and Severus blinked. The only thing that had convinced him Potter might feel something more than self-pity right now was the emotion in those eyes.

"I don't want to punish anyone," Potter whispered. "Never. I never want—something like what happened to me to happen to them. To you."

Severus blinked a little again. Did the boy think it was a matter of detentions? Of writing lines or making someone scrub out cauldrons?

Draco spoke again before Severus could find out. "If you try to curse me, I'm going to curse back."

There was a little movement behind Potter, and Granger tried to push forwards. "You mustn't!" she said, loudly enough that Severus thought the echoes would probably travel down the corridors and rouse the people who had stayed in the school, including Order of the Phoenix members and Aurors, in an attempt to figure out what should be arrested next. "It could get you hurt, terribly hurt. All the books say that a vassal can't hurt his Lord—"

It was a matter of who would open their mouths the most quickly in order to shout at Granger, Severus thought, but he had not thought it would be Potter who would win the race, much less Potter who would whirl violently on Granger.

"He only said that he would if I cursed him first, which I shouldn't do either, because I'm supposed to be his Lord, who _protects _him," Potter snapped. "So lay off him."

Granger looked so astonished that there was no room in her face for hurt. Potter was the one who flushed and stared at the floor, rubbing his right arm.

"Stupid bond," Severus thought he heard him whisper, but he could not be sure.

The next minute, he looked up at Severus with an expression a mule could have taken lessons from. "Look, are you going to try and convince the others that it's better to live in this bond than commit suicide, at least?"

Severus convinced himself that Potter's eyes did not peer inside Severus's soul when he spoke those words. He seemed to think the children were more of a suicide risk, anyway.

"I will talk to them," Severus said. "But I do not think you should be present. Not for the first conversation."

Potter just chopped his head down in a nod and turned away. Severus watched him walk to the end of the corridor and then abruptly glance around and clap a hand to his arm.

"What is it?" Draco asked. He had pressed forwards to watch Potter, too, ignoring the way Severus tried to shoo him back. He would.

"I knew you were in the dungeons because I could feel it through the shield," Potter said slowly, turning his head to the right and staring at two doors. "And I can feel two other people down here, too. But—I can't feel Zabini anywhere in the castle. Where is he? What happened to him?"

_Strange, _Severus thought, in the middle of his own stirring emotions, _to hear concern in the voice of someone with power over you._


	3. Flight

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Flight_

"What do you mean, he's gone?" That was Malfoy's voice, tight and panicked, almost a throb behind Harry. Harry put a hand on his own arm without thinking about it. Something small and tight ached there, probably the dot that represented Malfoy. He shook his head. The shield on him didn't seem to pick up emotions before, but this time it was doing it. He had no idea why. He would have to find out.

But for now, he had to find Zabini.

"Potter! What do you _mean_?"

Harry gritted his teeth as that quicksilver feeling ran through him again, joined by a second strand. He wanted to protect Malfoy from the distress he was feeling, and he wanted to tell him to shut up and be a little respectful, and neither impulse was _his_. Sure, he would have told Malfoy to shut up on any ordinary day, but not because of _that_.

"I mean, he's out of the school," Harry said, in a clipped tone, and cast a Privacy Charm around himself, because Malfoy was already whining about something else. He didn't seem to understand that the more he whined, the less likely he was to get a good answer to his question.

Alone inside the Charm—Ron and Hermione stared at him from outside it, but didn't try to interrupt—Harry found he could focus. The shield mark heated under his palm, and the pinprick swelled up in the blackness behind his eyelids.

A little green dot that marked Zabini was moving steadily away from the school. Harry blinked his eyes open when he realized where it was headed. He would have expected Zabini to be trying to get off the grounds as soon as possible so he could Apparate, but he was just as glad he hadn't.

"He's going into the Forbidden Forest," he snapped for anyone who cared to listen, then realized the Privacy Charm was still up and they couldn't hear him. He lowered it, repeated himself, and started up the corridor.

"_Potter!_"

The bond tried to drag his feet to a halt. Harry opened his mouth in a silent snarl. He ruled here, not a bond, and it wasn't going to make him abandon everything he wanted to do just to fulfill the stupid requirements of being a Lord.

It felt like forcing his way through water, but he was able to do it. And then Zabini entered the perimeter of the Forbidden Forest, or so Harry thought from the thick cloud of darkness hovering in the back of his mind, and suddenly the force dissolved and Harry could move easily. Harry reckoned that the danger Zabini was in had just surpassed the distress Malfoy was feeling behind him.

He ran. He could hear concerned shouting behind him, from Hermione and Ron about how he hadn't had enough rest to fling himself back into battle and some of the Death Eaters had escaped, from Malfoy about how he hadn't answered questions. Snape didn't say a thing. Well, Harry hadn't expected him to. From the way that another cloud of darkness appeared, swaying, when he focused on Snape, he reckoned that every moment he wasn't around, Snape could still pretend that he was free.

_I will have to do something about that._

But he also had to protect Zabini from walking down a werewolf's gullet or something else equally idiotic. He sped up, shaking his head. What would Zabini have gone into the Forbidden Forest _for_? There were quicker ways of committing suicide, if he wanted to, and Harry would think a Slytherin would choose that. They were usually cowards about facing pain.

* * *

Blaise paused and looked over his shoulder. Yes, the trees had closed in behind him, and the leaves he had stirred up with magic had settled over his trail. Blaise shut his eyes and exhaled, hard.

_Potter could still find me. But it doesn't matter._

Blaise had to move fast enough that that couldn't happen. He opened his eyes and walked further on, further into the forest.

The shadows around him trembled, inky and stalking him. Blaise ignored them. The thick pink line of his charm still blazed in front of him, leading him through hollows and over roots and around the edges of ponds that lay still on the surface but more than stagnant underneath. It would guide him to the creatures he wanted to find.

Soon enough, he heard them, the quick thumps that suggested the beating of hooves. Blaise kept his eyes lowered, studying that trembling roseate line. He walked until he reached a clearing, ochre and golden still with fallen leaves from last season, and then turned around and spread his arms.

The hoofbeats slowed, and Blaise could see the shadows of heads from the edges of the clearing, bending past tree trunks to watch him. Blaise kept his arms spread. He didn't drop his wand yet, although his mother had advised it when dealing with centaurs. Blaise knew that there were probably going to be some complications, and he didn't want to die if he didn't manage to bargain them into taking his mark away.

"I come to offer a deal," he said calmly. "Any enchantments you want, in exchange for removing one."

There was another long silence, before the first centaur chose to reveal himself. He was a thick-bodied one, with gleaming black flanks and a long, flicking dark tail that he swished back and forth as though he was dusting the earth with it. Or removing his own footprints, Blaise thought, staring him in the eyes. The centaur reared his head back and shook the cross between a hair and a mane, glossy, blackberry-colored curls, that spilled down almost to his back.

"What makes you think we can remove this enchantment?" he asked. Blaise could hear hooves closing in from other sides, but he didn't remove his eyes from the one in front of him. That he had chosen to open with talk of a bargain meant he was at least _considering _Blaise's offer. That made it worthwhile for Blaise to pay attention to him.

"Because it is on the skin," Blaise said. "And there was a time when centaurs were renowned as healers."

He let his doubt creep into his voice, and someone snorted from behind him. A roan centaur with golden hair trotted around him and up to the black one, considering the shield. Blaise had spread his arms partially because it was the ritual gesture his mother had taught him to use, but it also had the advantage of letting them see the shield mark. Obligingly, Blaise lifted his arm higher and further.

"We can remove this one," said the roan centaur to the black one. "But why should we? He is a young wizard and arrogant like all the rest."

"I am a slave against my will," Blaise said. He didn't know why they'd called attention to his age, but he didn't plan to focus on it. His mother had warned him ahead of time that he wouldn't understand everything the centaurs said, and he shouldn't expect to. He should focus on what was important, keep moving forwards. "That makes me desperate. You might have mistaken that for arrogance, honored sirs."

He used the honorific on purpose, and bowed. It was a bit of a gamble, but centaurs hated not being treated as politely as wizards. This might help.

The roan centaur looked at the first one. Blaise noted that his eyes were as golden as molten coins, and his hoof had stopped pawing the ground so hard.

"You will do it?" the black one asked what appeared to be thin air, since he was looking over the roan's head.

The roan nodded, his hair flapping. "We have not claimed a favor from a wizard in a long time," he said, and turned back to Blaise. "This one is young. Who knows what enchantments he might know that we have not heard of?"

"I will cast whatever spell you want me to," Blaise said, meeting his eyes unblinking. "If I don't know it, then I'll go and research it, and leave my wand here as insurance that I will come back."

The black one inclined his head once, and faded away into the shadows. The roan trotted up to Blaise, his hoof scraping so hard that he carved a shallow trough in the dirt when he stopped in front of Blaise. "I will kneel down to study the mark," he said. "Do not move. I must be undisturbed for the initial examination."

Blaise nodded. The centaur knelt, his forelegs folding neatly beneath him. This close, Blaise could see more clearly how _big _he was; he still had to bend his head a little to study the mark on Blaise's arm. Blaise could see the glossy muscles shivering under the skin, too, and smell the distinct scents of stallion and sweat.

The centaur snorted and turned his head to meet Blaise's eyes. "This is a Lord marking. How can you not have agreed to it?"

Blaise smiled tightly. He was glad that he had stayed up to discuss it with Pansy last night before going to bed, because she had been the one to give him the details he'd need to convince the centaur now. "The bond was the result of an accident, when a spell that was meant to enslave someone combined with a Shield Charm cast by Harry Potter. I was merely in the way."

"You are _his _vassal?" The centaur scrambled back to all fours and took a slow step back from him, glaring as though Blaise had lied to him on purpose. "The one who brought down the dark star and restored the supernova?"

_Centaurs are obsessed with the heavens and astronomy, _his mother's cool voice said in the back of his head. Blaise kept from curling his lip with that reminder, but it was frustrating, when the terms of the bargain so far had kept the creatures reasonable and from exploding into meaningless star-talk. "I don't know what that means," he said, as calmly as he could. "But it was an accident, not a true Lord-bond, and I want it gone."

"If you are bound to the one who brought down the dark star, then we cannot," said the centaur, and looked over his shoulder into the woods as though hoping that someone would show up and rescue him from having to keep his side of the bargain. "You cannot think that a Lord-bond would be so easy to end as that, whether it was an accident or not."

Blaise sneered and raised his eyebrows. "I don't see why not. It's not who he is that matters. It's this bond." He shook his arm again so that the centaur would look at it. "You couldn't tell who had made it until I told you. That makes it no different from any other. You could still heal me."

"It would not be healing, to remove that." The centaur was scraping another groove in the ground, but with his left hind hoof now, smearing his legs with dirt. "It would be condemnation."

Blaise glared, but then his arm jerked to the side, and he gritted his teeth. Yes, Potter was coming. That pull pointed back into the forest. Potter didn't have to use the charm that Blaise did to find the centaurs; he just followed the tug of the bond. Probably only the obstacles that Blaise had avoided but which Potter had crashed through had delayed him even this long.

"I'll cast whatever enchantment you want," Blaise said, catching the roan's eye again. "Kill a wizard for you. Be among the ones who are fighting for your rights in the Ministry. Be whatever you want. Just take it off me."

"Why are you so desperate to escape something that could protect you?" The centaur studied him with deep, liquid eyes, hoof still scraping. "You must know that the black star would have taken you otherwise."

"I'd like to know that, too."

Blaise turned his head. He wanted to bite his tongue, or strike at Potter. But the shield on his arm flared to life at that, and he stood there trying not to cry out instead. Which was not the way he had wanted to confront someone who now legally owned him.

Potter stood against the big tree at the very edge of the clearing, the one with bronze leaves piled around its base. His hair was as dark as the star the centaur had been going on about, his eyes as verdant a green as the Forest would turn in a few weeks. And he moved a step forwards with his hand cradling his own right arm.

"I knew where you had gone," he said quietly. "I just didn't know why."

The centaur had faded back into the shadows. Blaise didn't bother looking after him. For the first time in his life, his mother's teachings had failed him. She had told him centaurs were hungry for recognition from wizards after years of being ignored and despised; it was the best and easiest way to get one of them to help him.

_Obviously, it's different when you're Potter's plaything._

"I wanted to get rid of this," Blaise said. He didn't listen to his own voice, for the first time in a long time, didn't care whether it was respectful or cautious or prideful. He just watched Potter, who watched him back. "I don't want to be a slave. I had the impression you didn't want to be a Lord, either. Isn't equality important to you?" He didn't give a shit about sounding as if he were begging, which he knew his mother would have condemned him for. If it could free him, he would play on Potter's Gryffindor sympathies.

"It is," Potter said. "But Hermione's assured me that there's no way to break this."

"Obviously, your friend is the most brilliant witch in creation," Blaise said. He didn't fold his arms, didn't touch the right one, even though the burning had shifted to an incandescent pain. It didn't matter. It couldn't matter, or he would begin his fall from control of his own mind right here. He knew it was happening because the Lord bonds ran on loyalty, and every thought he had at the moment was disloyal. But so what? If he succeeded, it wouldn't matter. "The centaurs are healers. This is essentially a skin infection. If they can remove it, we could be free."

He didn't miss the way Potter's breath caught, or how he leaned forwards. Blaise smiled. "You like the sound of that," he murmured.

"Hell yes." But then Potter turned his head and frowned into the woods. "The centaur didn't seem to think he could treat you. Why was that?"

"Because it's you," Blaise said. "And there was some nonsense about dark stars and what you supposedly saved me from. But if we can find another one, one who doesn't care about that, isn't it worth _trying_?"

Potter stared at him for a little while longer. Well, squinted, really. Blaise stood there even though he wanted to touch his arm, or at least put some distance between them. He had never paid that much attention to Potter; Draco was the one who couldn't stop talking about how Potter was plotting against them and had to be humiliated. But he could see how the seeds of frustration could grow up into hatred. Potter wasn't doing anything. Blaise had thought the good thing about Gryffindors was how quickly they made a decision when finally pushed into it.

"You don't know anything about the cure," Potter said. "I do want to be free of this, if there's a way. But both Hermione and Snape seem to think there isn't. I think we ought to go back to the school and talk about it with them."

"Your precious Mudblood friend isn't part of this bond," Blaise said.

He gasped in the next moment, because the pain of the shield mark was so severe that he could no longer keep his hand off it. He stared at Potter as he did it, though. Because, really, what was disloyal about that? None of the Lord bonds Blaise was familiar with included disparaging remarks about the Lord's associates under the name of treachery.

But Potter turned away instead of hitting him, or making a smirking remark about punishment the way Blaise would have thought he would if he had started to learn about Lord bonds. "Come on," he said. "Let's go back to the school. If the centaurs are a viable option, Snape can tell us that."

Blaise stood in place and shook his head, despising the quivering impulse in his legs that wanted to obey Potter. He might _want _to, with that particular corrupted corner of his being, but he was not _going _to, and sooner or later his body would learn that. He had yielded, foolishly so far, under the impression that Potter's longing for freedom was greater than his need to yield to authority. It seemed Blaise had been wrong, even if the authority in question was Snape.

"You aren't going to be a good Lord," Blaise said. "When you can't make up your mind without resorting to other people's opinions? That's not what a _Lord _does."

Potter stopped and turned to glance back at him slowly, his eyes round and alien. Blaise wondered if it was his imagination that the shadows in the Forest around them were darker, and decided it was. He wouldn't let it be anything else.

"But I don't want to be a good Lord in the sense you mean," Potter said. "I don't want to be an—an autocrat." He said the word like it was one he'd fetched up from the dusty pages of a book somewhere. Blaise snorted. Potter glared at him some more, and gave his head a sharp little jerk that made him look like he was the one collared and bound to a horrible fate. "I want—I want to listen to other people and rule that way. If I have to."

Blaise paused. The shadows kept growing darker, but the burn in his mark had once again retreated to a manageable level.

It had never occurred to him that this might be a possible escape, that Potter was simply too _weak _to hold him. Normally, a vassal couldn't attack a Lord because the Lord was stronger, magically and every other way.

But this wasn't a normal circumstance, was it? Blaise could hear his mother's voice crooning in the back of his mind, urging him to pay attention.

_Potter didn't even defeat the Dark Lord by virtue of greater magical power, the way he should have if he wanted to claim anyone else's allegiance. He did it by accident. If Draco hadn't disarmed the Headmaster, if Potter hadn't disarmed Draco, if the Elder Wand hadn't happened to come into the Dark Lord's hand the way it did…_

Blaise's hand shook a little as he rested it on his wand. The pain flared again, but dimly, as if the bond didn't really understand what he was doing.

_No, Potter's the one who doesn't understand. _Potter still stood there, staring at him, blinking a little. Each time he did, he seemed to shade those disturbing green eyes for a second longer.

Blaise half-crouched and stared over Potter's shoulder. It was the oldest deception of all, but Potter fell for it, like the stupid Gryffindor he was. Potter whirled around, drawing his own wand in a graceful motion that Blaise would have admired if he was another Slytherin.

Blaise struck, with a nonverbal incantation that his mother had made him practice again and again until he could do it. Not a powerful spell, or you wouldn't think so from hearing its name, the Stopping Charm. No muss, no fuss, no cleft flesh and blood flying everywhere. The most common use for the Stopping Charm was to halt small moving parts, like a clock's pendulum, so they could be repaired or set going anew.

But applied to a small valve in the heart—

Potter spun to face him, throwing one hand out as though he was defending himself against Blaise but was too lazy to summon a Shield Charm.

And then Blaise's right arm was on fire, he was screaming, the pain flashed through him and blinded his brain, and he writhed on the ground, all colors and voices and consequences gone into the white burning.

* * *

_Shit. Shit! I didn't mean to do that!_

But Harry, as he ran to Zabini's side, knew that he had done at least part of it. He had seen Zabini aiming his wand at him, had felt a quiver in his chest that made his heart beat faster than normal, and had thought, first and foremost, of stopping the treacherous little shit.

And he had been able to. Because he had the bond, and when he had imagined Zabini in pain, the way he used to imagine Dudley and Malfoy and Snape…

This time, he had the ability to actually _make _them suffer. And if he did that around Malfoy and Snape, they would suffer the same thing, the same punishment. It was worse than what the Dursleys had done to him.

_Shit._

Harry dropped to the ground beside Zabini. He was screaming, or he had been, but the sound had trailed off now, and the only noise coming out of him was a thin, faint whistle, as though his vocal cords were straining to produce more, and couldn't. His heels hit the ground, and then his legs straightened out so they simply hung in the air, too far off the earth even to give off that basic signal of pain.

"Fuck, stop," Harry yelled straight into his face. Nothing happened. Zabini continued to act as though his arm was burning up, and Harry shook him and slapped him and yelled some more, words he couldn't remember later, but it didn't stop. Harry shut his eyes and tried to concentrate through the whistling to remember what Hermione and Snape had said about Lord bonds, to see if it would give him some sort of clue.

It didn't. Or it didn't seem to. They had just said that he had the power to punish, and that somehow everyone would know and agree that it was appropriate. _Not Zabini, _Harry thought, flinching as he touched Zabini's arm and felt the muscles, like ridged marble. No one had told him how to stop the punishment.

Then a simple idea hit him, and because nothing else had worked, he tried it.

"I forgive you," he whispered, and tried to put as much true feeling behind that as he could, not just horror at Zabini being hurt, because horror had done nothing so far to stop this _stupid _thing.

Zabini's limbs dropped back to the earth. He lay there panting, for a second, and then he opened his eyes and stared at Harry. He had the glazed look Harry remembered seeing on Ron's face after Ron had been attacked by the flying brains in the Department of Mysteries. Probably in shock.

Then he passed out.

Harry knelt there, still staring at him, and then swallowed and stood up. He had caused this, and that meant he had to make up for it somehow. He lifted Zabini into the air with the gentlest spell he knew, and created a stretcher beneath him. It was a difficult charm, but he'd seen Madam Pomfrey use it before, and it seemed to come easier when he concentrated, so maybe the Lord bond was good at something besides hurting people.

Then he turned and started guiding the stretcher back to the castle, making sure that it went around trees instead of crashing into them.

He didn't like this, he thought with every step. He didn't like, most of all, the gentle warmth that had settled into his own shield mark, as though he had done something comforting instead of burning Zabini's arm off.

They might all have to live with it, although maybe the centaurs were an option. But Harry _had _to find some way to control his temper. They would all suffer if he didn't.


	4. Questions and Skin Infections

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_Chapter Four—Questions and Skin Infections_

Harry stepped into a quiet entrance hall. But he could feel the tension thrumming up and around from at least four people in the mark on his arm.

Harry closed his eyes and sighed. Zabini hadn't awakened at all on the march to the castle. He wondered if that was a good or a bad thing. On one hand, it meant he hadn't screamed his head off. On the other, Harry would have liked some reassurance that he was still alive.

The shield mark on his arm wasn't going crazy _now_, and Zabini's breathing was still slow and steady. Maybe that was all the reassurance he really needed.

Footsteps moving towards him made Harry take up a protective stance in front of the stretcher, his wand raised. He hadn't seen them personally, but if Ron and Hermione were right, there were Aurors in the school. Aurors might be reasonable, like the ones in the Order, or they might want to arrest everyone who had been involved with the Slytherins in any way, like Scrimgeour. Harry couldn't let them take Zabini—even assuming he had been involved with Death Eaters—until he knew if he was all right.

But it was Ron and Hermione, followed by Mrs. Weasley and Ginny and a few other Gryffindors, who appeared around the corner. Harry relaxed and waved at them to come closer. As long as no one insulted Zabini or tried to attack him, it should be all right.

"What happened, Harry?" Hermione whispered, coming to a halt in front of him and peering around him at Zabini, as if she could tell by looking. Maybe she could. After the last year and how many times she had kept them alive on the run, Harry had started to try never to underestimate the amount of knowledge Hermione had.

"Oh, _Harry!_" someone shouted before he could answer, and then Mrs. Weasley hugged him.

Harry closed his eyes and squeezed her back. Of course he was glad that his friends had brought him food this morning and started discussing the situation, so he had _someone _to talk to who was sane, but he was also glad someone was here who would just hold him and make clucking noises and ask, as Mrs. Weasley did a minute later, if he was all right and had he had a chance to take a bath and he shouldn't give interviews until he was ready and was he all _right_.

Harry had to swallow as a huge lump of emotion rose up in his throat. It felt like—loneliness. Homesickness. But what he was homesick for was his parents and what it probably would have been like if they were alive.

"I'm all right," he finally said, when Mrs. Weasley left him a breath in edgewise to answer. "Thank you. I'm—still dealing with all this, and Zabini and I both did something stupid out in the woods, but we're okay. I think," he added, with one more dubious glance at the stretcher. Zabini didn't contradict him, but it was kind of hard to when he was flat on his back with his eyes shut.

"What did you do that was stupid out in the woods?"

That was Ginny, her eyes so big they seemed as if they would overwhelm most of her face, looking at him sideways, and quietly. Her voice was quiet, too. Harry put out his hand, and Ginny took it, looking earnestly at him.

Harry tried to remember if she had looked at him that way before the war. He thought so, but honestly, so much seemed fuzzy and ill-defined about that time, while everything since had been thrown into sharp relief. He had to clear his throat a few times before he answered. "Zabini used a spell on me. I don't know exactly what it was, but it made my heart jump."

"Like you were running?" Ron asked, leaning forwards to peer at Harry's chest as if his heart would explode out and splatter him with blood. Harry had to admit that would have been much wilder than what he actually had to report.

"No," Harry said. "Like it was going to stop. Like—he was trying to give me a heart attack. But I don't know if he actually was," he added hastily, because everyone else was gaping at him and he was afraid they wouldn't take what Harry had retaliated with seriously enough. "I reacted like he was, and the bond punished him."

"I don't see any sign of it," Hermione said, leaning forwards and studying Zabini's face and chest.

"You whipped him, and you healed the whip marks?" Ron sounded disappointed.

Harry rubbed his forehead as that damn quicksilver feeling moved through him again, and squeezed harder on Ginny's hand. "_No_. Will you please stop saying things like that, mate? It makes me uncomfortable."

"Sorry." Ron shook his head. "But he looks okay for having just been through a punishment. Maybe you're taking it too seriously."

"Lordship is a very serious thing," Mrs. Weasley said, frowning at him. Ron rolled his eyes at Harry behind her back as she turned to Harry and patted his shoulder in a steadying way. "What did you do, Harry dear?"

"I caused him some kind of pain," Harry whispered. "In his arm, I think, since he grabbed it first. He was in so much pain he couldn't even _scream. _Just whistle this kind of—thin cry. And his legs were hanging in midair."

There was a movement on the edge of his mind and the edge of the hall at once. Harry looked up and saw black robes sweeping around the corner. He winced. Snape had been listening, he thought. And now he would probably think Harry was a worse Lord and they were all in more danger than ever.

"You hurt him?" Ginny whispered. Her face had gone pale.

"Yes," Harry said. "It didn't stop even when I said stop. It didn't stop until I said I forgave him."

In the silence that followed, Ginny detached her hand from his.

Harry turned to her with his mouth open, and then closed it when he saw the look she was giving him. He didn't know what to do with it, really, or if he should do anything. Maybe she was right to look at him like that. He would have said she was until it actually started happening. He swallowed and turned back to Hermione.

"I want to get Madam Pomfrey to look at him," he said. "Or some other Healer, if there's anyone here. Is there?"

"I am."

Harry jumped. He thought he had already become used to feeling and hearing other people around him through the bond, so he was surprised that the woman striding towards him now had managed to come this close without him noticing her. Especially since she was almost as tall as Snape, and had lime-green robes on, and had a smile that made him think of the way Dumbledore smiled when he was going into battle.

She nodded to Harry, said, "My name is Healer Emeraude Kislik, Lord Potter. St. Mungo's summoned me because I have some experience in dealing with the victims of Lordship bonds," and tapped her wand on Zabini's chest, murmuring to herself. Flashing red letters appeared above his head. Harry had no idea what they meant. He watched them bob and shine in place, while Healer Kislik nodded to herself or shook her head depending on what seemed to be chance.

"Victims?" Hermione was the one to ask. "What do you mean by that?"

Kislik smiled at Hermione. This time it was the smile, Harry thought, of a shark that had spotted something slow-moving and delicious in the water.

"I'll explain later, after I've finished making sure this young man didn't take permanent damage," she said, and looked at Harry. Harry flinched. Kislik nodded. "You'll have to make sure that you control your temper in the future, when you have other lives depending on the sweetness of it," she murmured.

She turned back to Zabini, and Harry turned his head to the stairs that led down to the dungeons. Two of his Slytherins were coming this way. Malfoy and Parkinson, he thought, concentrating on them.

Then he realized what he had thought and blinked. _My Slytherins? I don't want to think like that, either._

But Malfoy and Parkinson appeared on the scene then, loud and demanding, _real _people, and Harry had to forget about things inside his own head for a while. Because their reaction to the sight of Zabini on a stretcher was as loud and real as anything he could have wished them to show. They weren't under his control so fully that they would stop expressing their emotions just because it would be more comfortable for him, and he had to be grateful for that.

* * *

"What happened to Blaise?"

Pansy's voice was low and horrified. Draco shook his head, rejecting the feeling for a second if not the question. He couldn't take on Pansy's horror in addition to his own. He had learned during the war that that didn't work. He could only carry so much fear, or he would explode.

He took a cautious step forwards, and felt Pansy fall into step behind him. At least she would kind of shadow him and back him up if it turned out that Potter had beaten Blaise to death. That was something.

A slight burn from his arm made Draco grimace. Yes, yes, the bond was punishing him for his disloyal thoughts about Potter. It didn't matter. He had torn out of here and hadn't explained to _any _of them where he was going. Draco hadn't done a lot of reading about Lord bonds, but what he had done said that Lords owed a responsibility to their vassals just as the vassals owed a duty to them. He should have told someone. What would have happened if he'd died out in the Forest?

_Then we'd be free._

Draco sighed and walked towards Potter, Pansy trailing at his heels. Professor Snape had tried to tell him again and again that he couldn't get caught up in elaborate plans and not _do _anything. And right now it would be stupid to try and plan anything anyway, since he didn't know enough.

"What did you to do to him, Potter?" he said, and then blinked and lowered his voice as he realized Potter was already looking at him. He'd thought he would have to fight for his attention with the Weasleys. "Why did you do it?"

Potter bit his lip. He had some dirt on his cheek, and he folded his arms as if he wanted to hide the shield mark. Draco just stood there and looked at him. He didn't think Potter had fought Blaise, or both of them would have been a lot more battered.

"I think we should wait for Goyle and Snape," Potter said. "I only want to have to explain this once."

"That bad, is it?" Pansy had found enough courage to put her head around from behind Draco, and sneer at Potter. "You can't find a way to make it look good to anyone who hears it, so you're going to hesitate and stutter along if you have to say it more than once?"

Potter kept his head turned away instead of looking at her, focusing instead on the stretcher and something the Healer who stood there was saying to him. Draco sniffed. He was at least glad that a _proper _Healer was taking care of Blaise, although she might only be trying to get him well enough to survive his stint in Azkaban.

"You can answer me," Pansy said, raising her voice. "Gregory won't come out of his room for anything, and Professor Snape has more important things to do than listen to your convoluted explanations."

"What about Malfoy?" Potter turned back around and, this time, to Draco's discomfort, he really was looking directly at Draco. "Do you want to hear it twice, or just once? Here?"

Draco licked his lips and found his voice, which had gone into hiding somewhere in the back of his throat. "I think you should apologize for running out and leaving us with no idea of what was going on, whether Blaise was in danger or you were."

Potter looked at him, and then smiled. Draco took a wary step back, but that didn't work well, because Pansy had tried to hide behind him in turn. They collided, and spent a moment wobbling back and forth while Weasleys snickered.

"I didn't think you would care that much about the last part," Potter muttered.

"You're our Lord now," Pansy said, popping her head out again. "We've got to obey you and follow you around and do what you say." Draco frowned. Pansy tended to repeat herself a lot, one reason Draco didn't think much of her stated ambition to be a politician. Her speeches would bore everyone too much for them to listen to her innovative proposals. "I don't exactly _want _to do this, but if we don't, then the Aurors here would probably arrest us."

"I wouldn't let that happen," said the Healer working on Blaise calmly, without looking up.

Pansy blinked at her. Draco took up the thread of the argument, because none of this was getting them to the heart of what they needed to know, which was what Potter had done to Blaise. "What _happened, _Potter?"

Potter sighed a little, and said, "You might as well come out and hear it with the rest of them, Professor Snape."

Draco turned his head in surprise. He had always been the best of the students in Slytherin at telling when their Head of House was nearby, but he hadn't sensed it at all in this case. Snape slowly stepped out into the entrance hall, sneered at Potter, and spread his arms mockingly. "My ears work whether they are a few meters or one from you, Potter."

"Yes, well," Potter said, and Draco thought he saw him bite his tongue. But he didn't know why, and he didn't care, because Potter was turning around as if to make sure that his audience of obedient little hangers-on was paying attention, too, and perhaps they would finally get to hear why their friend was _lying in a stretcher._

"Zabini went out into the Forbidden Forest," Potter said, not raising his voice much. "He thought the centaurs might be able to remove the Lord-bond mark. He thinks of it as a skin infection, apparently, and the centaurs are skilled healers."

Draco caught his breath. He hadn't thought of that, but it was marvelous for Blaise to have done so. On the other hand, centaurs were savage creatures and the stories of their healing wizards were centuries old. But perhaps a Healer from St. Mungo's could do the same thing? This one seemed to be at least a little sympathetic to them.

And her hands had stopped working over Blaise while she listened, Draco noticed. Maybe that was a good sign.

"The centaur refused to touch the Lord-bond because—because it was me, basically." Potter rubbed his face, which was a stupid gesture since it drove his glasses into his nose and then he had to straighten them out again. "Something about a black star and a supernova. I don't know. I tried to get Zabini to come back to the castle with me, and he attacked me. I felt this odd jump in my chest and I turned around and he had his wand raised. I thought he was trying to attack me, maybe cause a heart attack."

"That's impossible," Pansy snapped. "Blaise wouldn't be that stupid. He knows that a Lord is always stronger than a vassal. You can't get free by killing a Lord."

Potter snorted, and the sound was bitter enough to make Draco start. "But I'd just been nice to him, a little, and asked him questions instead of commanding him to obey. Maybe he thought that meant I was too weak to be a Lord."

Draco looked at Pansy without meaning to, and found her looking back. She gave the shadow of a nod. Yes, that might be something Blaise would think.

Draco glanced at Professor Snape, too, and saw him standing with his arms folded, his head tilted to the side as he listened.

"I turned around," Potter was saying now, reciting in a dull voice. "I was angry. I lifted my hand. And Zabini started screaming. I think the pain started in his shield mark. He looked like he was on fire. Not visibly, but—it was that kind of pain. In a little while, he couldn't even make noise anymore, it was so bad."

Draco wondered if he was the only one who saw Ginny Weasley wrap her arms around herself and take a long step back from Potter. Or maybe Potter's eyes, flickering sideways before he returned his gaze to them, saw it, too.

"It didn't end until I forgave him," Potter said, and then he took a deep breath like someone drowning and turned on Professor Snape. "Is there any way you can stop this? There _must _be some way that you can stop this. None of us can live with this."

"We must, Potter," said Professor Snape. His mouth had twitched to the side in an odd way that Draco had never seen before, but even as Draco watched, it relaxed. Professor Snape had been a spy, he knew that now. There was no other way he would have rushed between the Dark Lord and the small lot of Slytherin students and tried to rescue them. But Draco had never suspected it during the war. "I told you, there is no way to break a bond like this once it is established."

"Zabini went to the centaurs," Potter said. "And Healer Kislik said she could work on it."

Professor Snape looked at the Healer. Draco did, too. She had her head bowed, still casting diagnostic spells on Blaise, but Draco could just make out the edge of a smile.

"With all due respect to Healer Kislik," Professor Snape said, in a voice that made it worse if he had been openly disrespectful, "I do not think this is a problem that she can change. Nothing _can _be done except to live with the bond."

"But Zabini wanted to make a bargain with magical creatures he distrusted and attack me rather than live with it," Potter insisted, taking a step forwards. "You feel like you would rather die than live with it."

Professor Snape's eyes fixed on Potter, and there was something else there Draco had never seen. The next instant, the professor had looked at Draco and Pansy as though they were doing something wrong by standing so close.

"Leave us," Professor Snape said, and his voice was more terrifying than the Dark Lord's when he spoke Parseltongue.

Pansy fell back a step, with a whimper. Draco reached out to take her hand and said, "But this is about us, too. Potter's right. None of us want it. Why should you be left alone to talk about it, just because you hate it more?"

"I have some experience in living through this, and you do not." Professor Snape had gone white to the lips. "_Go_."

Draco might still have stood there and tried to force things—they didn't even know for sure if Blaise was going to be all right yet—but Pansy tugged on his hand again, and made him move. Draco went with her, but still watched over his shoulder as Professor Snape and Potter faced each other. Yes, the professor was white. He reached out one hand as though he was going to clap Potter on the shoulder, weirdly, then pulled it back again and said something in a low, furious hiss that Draco couldn't make out. Potter nodded. Professor Snape stalked off towards a staircase, and Potter followed.

Draco sighed and turned around again. He reckoned he should go find his parents anyway, and reassure them that he was still alive and Potter hadn't forced him into becoming his servant, the fate that his mother in particular seemed to be afraid of.

_I just want to know what's going to _happen.

* * *

Snape turned around when he got the door of the Charms classroom shut. Harry glanced around, saw the dirty stain low down on one wall that he knew very well from the color was dried blood, and decided that he would rather not look anymore.

"How did you know?" Snape's voice was soft.

Harry wanted to cover the shield mark with his hand again, but he thought Snape would probably kill him if he did that. He didn't know how to answer. He had spoken what he thought the blackness swaying in the back of his head, the dark candle flame that represented Snape, felt like, not—

But Snape had taken him literally.

"You _do _want to kill yourself," he said, and he didn't know how to interpret the softness of his own voice.

"You can, of course, order me not to."

Snape's eyes were wide and black and glinting like oil. Harry flinched before he could stop himself.

Snape, unlike Zabini, didn't use that moment of weakness to cast a spell on Harry. He merely sneered and turned away, pacing in a slow circle while staring at the walls as though they would tell him something they wouldn't tell Harry.

"I won't—I won't do that," Harry managed to croak. He coughed and cleared his throat and started over stronger. "What I mean, sir—"

Snape turned around. Harry recoiled at the look on his face.

"Do not call me by that title again," Snape said. "It is a meaningless mockery when I can have no authority over you."

Harry nodded, but found his voice. "What am I supposed to call you, then? 'Green pinpoint on the left' doesn't have a real ring to it. And professor is another title."

Snape looked at him as though he had never expected the question. Then he said, "Severus will do. If you must."

Harry resolved quietly that he would keep from using the name if he could, except when Snape wasn't around, and then said, "Look, I need—I don't want you alive because I hate you and I'm trying to take charge of your life. I need you alive because you're the one who can help the others the most."

"Ah, yes, the role of the sacrifice is one to which I am well-accustomed," Snape said, and his smile was jagged. "Although I _did _hope to someday play the role in which I do not teach others to lay their necks on the chopping-block."

"Well, then help me find a way to get rid of this—"

"There _is _no way to get rid of this!" Snape crossed the ground between them with a long stride, staring at him. "Do you not _understand_? There is no way to destroy a normal Lord-bond, and this is _not normal_."

"Then help them learn to live with it!" Harry shouted back, stepping up to Snape. He didn't know who was more surprised, Snape or him, but he plunged ahead before he could think about it, because that was when he did the best work. "I nearly killed Zabini today. I might have. I'm not good at this, I know I'm not good. I've been a sacrifice and a hero and a fighter and a Chosen One, but I've never had to _rule_ like this. Help me learn to keep my temper and test the limits of the bond! Hermione's already said it'll be a little weird, and there's things that aren't—they don't make sense, like the way I can sometimes sense you and sometimes can't. So help me learn to be a good Lord. I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to kill you. Help the others learn to live with this."

Then he stopped, because Snape was staring at him with hooded eyes and he knew they hadn't been the right words. Harry thought a minute, head hanging, quicksilver feelings that weren't his own still darting through him.

"No," he said after a second, lifting his head. "Help them learn to _live_."

And while Snape still studied him as though Harry was a Potions ingredient gone rotten, Harry knew they had been the right words by the way the light in Snape's eyes grew sterner and more open, and by the feeling in his own heart, like a key fitting a lock.

_That has to be it. If we really can't get out of this, then it's not going to be just a matter of me keeping my temper. They could still get in trouble for hurting someone else and force me to punish them that way. _

_We'll work together. We don't have a choice. We'll keep it going._

_And if I'm good enough, then maybe someday it'll be like they're free._

* * *

Severus did not move or speak for long moments, until he felt he could nod acceptance of what the boy in front of him had proposed.

He did not wish to discuss his own desire for suicide any further. He did not wish to discuss what Potter thought the bond would mean to Severus, because it could never mean anything but slavery and entanglements with Potter, when he had thought he had finally paid the long debt owed.

But that it might mean less than a completely miserable life for the students whom he had tried to protect was a chance he was willing to grab for.


	5. Healer Interrogations

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_Chapter Five—Healer Interrogations_

"Is he going to be all right?"

"He'll be fine. No thanks to you."

Harry swallowed. He had known, when Healer Kislik herded him into the infirmary immediately after he came out of the conversation with Snape, and took him to Zabini's bedside, that she hadn't come to congratulate him, but he hadn't thought it would be this harsh. He folded his elbows into his hands and turned to face Kislik, who had shut the door of the infirmary and performed a few complex locking spells on it.

"The bond wouldn't let me stop hurting him until I said I forgave him," he whispered.

"I know," Healer Kislik said, and turned back to Zabini. Harry looked with her. He looked small and still, his chest rising and falling so slowly that Harry had to watch for almost a minute to convince himself he _was _breathing.

"He hasn't woken up yet?" Harry asked.

"No." Healer Kislik turned her head slowly. Harry flinched from her gaze. He reminded himself that she wouldn't _hurt _him. That would be a violation of her oath as a Healer. He squared his shoulders and prepared to continue facing up to his new responsibilities. Snape had gone down into the dungeons to speak with Malfoy and Parkinson, and see if Goyle would come out of his room. This part of it was something only Harry could do.

"You caused him nerve damage when you burned him," Kislik said quietly. "It will heal, because it was magical damage alone, and you forgave him." Her lips curled around the words. Harry didn't look away. It was hard, though. "You _must _see that being Lord of these Slytherins is not the proper thing for them, that they need their freedom."

Harry nodded. Even the ones he was sure would face trials for being Death Eaters, like Snape and Malfoy, would do it better if they weren't tied to him and he could testify for them freely.

Ignoring the bubbling-lava feeling in the back of his mind that said they were _his _and he had to protect them, not let them go unprotected into their trials, he asked, "But what can I do? Everyone seems to think there's no way that I can break the bond."

Healer Kislik leaned forwards. This time, he was the recipient of the shark-smile that she had given Hermione, and Harry had to admit it was no more comfortable for him than it had probably been for her. "Who told you that? People under the bond. And people not under the bond, but who don't necessarily know much about the bond magic."

Harry blinked. It was true that Hermione had _just _looked up the information on the Lord-bonds when she spoke to him, and while he trusted her, she might not know much about it yet. And the others… "Are you saying that being under a Lordship bond affects what they can tell me? What they know?"

Kislik took a seat beside Zabini's bed and leaned back, shaking her head a little. She kept her body as a barrier between him and Zabini. Harry licked his lips and forced down the twisting threads of color and emotion in the back of his brain that weren't him, and would _never be him_. "You are smarter than I thought you were, considering you never once considered there might be another option."

"I only thought that because people kept telling me there _wasn't_," Harry snapped back. At least he thought this flare of temper was his own. "I thought Zabini's centaur idea had merit, but I never would have thought of it myself. I don't want to be a Lord, though. If there's another way, tell me and I'll do it."

Kislik continued to examine him as though wondering how sincere he was being. Harry glared back at her, silently daring her to find fault with his determination to get free. Of course he wanted his life to go back to what he thought it would be, with people to mourn and people to talk to and people to testify for, but no one to _rule._

And maybe then he could go to Ginny and explain the truth, and understand the fear in her eyes, and how he could cure it.

Finally, Kislik said, her hair swirling around her as she shook her head, "You might not have thought of this because you do not have a Healer's training." Harry nodded a little, accepting that as the best apology he would get. "But magic is like anything else that you can use, any part of your body," Kislik continued, her voice rising a little. Then she glanced back at Zabini and lowered it. "If you don't exercise a muscle, it atrophies. When wizards live away from our world, among Muggles, and don't use their magic, it is never as strong as it was if they _do _come back. If you don't exercise the Lordship bond, it will begin to fade. There have been examples in the past, one I assisted in myself five years ago, where the bond became so weak after a time of the Lord—well, Lady in this case—not using her power that the next time she tried, it snapped."

Harry thought about that. It made sense, as far as he could see, although he was hardly an expert on magical theory. He was sure Hermione could pick all sorts of holes in it.

But he was the one concerned in it, and it seemed that Kislik had some kind of experience that made it more likely her advice originated in reality. He asked, "All right, but how does that deal with the legal aspects? Hermione told me I would be legally bound to do things like appear in court and pay fines if they misbehaved."

Kislik's eyebrows rose. "You mean, exercised their own free will and their true choice, like the independent human beings they are?"

Harry felt his face burn. He supposed he deserved that. The Lordship bond seemed sometimes to be creeping into his brain despite himself, altering his language and his priorities.

He nodded and said, "Yes. But people on the outside would still expect me to handle the legal penalties, and they could go to Azkaban if I don't, given some of the things the Death Eaters did. How can I keep from exercising my power then?"

"The legal penalties, you cannot," Kislik said, shaking her head. "But that has little or nothing to do with the magic of the Lordship bond, the power that carves its way into your hearts and minds, making you think eventually that you have a _right _to own them, and them think that they have a _duty _to obey."

Harry made a face. That did sound like the sort of thing he had been through with the Dursleys, which meant it sounded awful.

_Is that what's making Ginny afraid of me? I don't want to make anyone afraid of me._

"It was imposed by people outside the bond, who sought some way of accommodating the Lords and their vassals under standard legal practice," Kislik was continuing. "They thought they had to recognize it, because it affected the behavior of everyone concerned." She sneered. "If they had refused, then perhaps more of those bonds would have been broken before they could become entrenched. The key is not to recognize these bonds, but to weaken and not enforce them."

Harry nodded. He could see that. And so far, everything she said still sounded like good sense. Maybe it was even the same thing as what he'd been talking about with Snape, the idea of holding the reins so lightly that in the end, his Slytherins wouldn't think about him or let him affect their lives. He just hadn't thought that doing that would possibly weaken the bond itself.

_My Slytherins. _There it was again. Harry shuddered at himself. He would have to watch his thoughts closely, that was certain, or he would never manage to break the bond. The stupid thing was linked directly to his protective instincts, that was the problem, and so it was natural for him to behave this way.

_But not natural, in the end. Enforced by magic. And even if I would like it, it's because I wouldn't have the raw end of the deal._

Harry looked up at Kislik. She wasn't watching him. Her eyes were on Zabini instead, and her expression was so fiercely tender and protective, itself, that Harry had to ask, "Do you know him?"

"What?" Kislik glanced back at him, as distant as a hawk. In an instant, her lip had curled, and Harry shivered. He was glad she didn't look at him with the same mindless fear that Ginny did, but being despised that intensely wasn't much more comfortable. "Oh, no. Of course not. My family has always been Light, and I don't think that anyone in it was ever Sorted into Slytherin. I was Hufflepuff, myself."

Harry nodded uncertainly. Kislik leaned forwards, her hands looped over her knees and her voice so soft that Harry thought someone trying to eavesdrop wouldn't be able to hear her.

"I am an advocate of breaking Lordship bonds and the other unnatural, pernicious forms of slavery that run through wizarding society and which far too many people understand as something to be praised and celebrated. Lordship bonds are not the most common, but they are the ones that the most people think of as good. For years, I've fought for victims who can't speak for themselves, who might be literally unable to lift their voices against their Lords, or who might think they've fully accepted it, when really, the magic has the effect of brainwashing."

Harry nodded slowly. Okay, so he didn't like the way she looked at him, but it made sense. If he was part of that class of people she despised, he was surprised that she could sit that close to him and still speak to him nicely.

"So," Kislik said. Suddenly she was leaning back from him again, still with her arm on Zabini's bed. "You think you know how to handle this, and you don't. You don't understand what it will do to them, how it'll carve paths in their minds, the thought of obedience and even the pleasure of being protected. For some people, a lot of people, it's like that. They start thinking there are enough advantages to being protected that rebellion isn't worth it." Her eyes flared wide open, while her fingers clenched in front of her. "It's _fucked-up_."

Harry sighed. He understood that. "All right. I agree it is, and I never wanted this, either."

Kislik considered him again. "Good," she said at last. "Most people don't consider it, but this kind of thing deforms the Lords' souls, too. Free human beings aren't meant to own each other. You want to be a good person? Then step back, and hope that its hooks aren't too deep in you already."

"It's only been a day," Harry mumbled.

"More like a day and a half, and it can be enough." Kislik looked at him for long seconds before she continued speaking. "You can feel it, can't you? The urge to defend them. The urge to think of them as yours."

Harry nodded and closed his eyes. "All right. How do I step back from them? How do I—how do I weaken the bond and keep from exercising it?"

Kislik patted his shoulder. Harry opened his eyes to see her holding her hand up, the tip of her wand glowing.

"I'll show you."

* * *

"Gregory, will you _come out_?"

Pansy rolled her eyes and leaned back against the wall of the Slytherin common room, her arms wrapped around her chest. Draco didn't understand. This had changed everything. He thought he could just command Greg the way he always had, but Vincent had died only yesterday, and the Dark Lord had fallen, and Potter had marked them. They were living in a new world. The old rules didn't apply anymore.

Which meant that maybe the things she wanted didn't apply anymore, or she wouldn't be able to achieve them.

Pansy shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, holding her hands close to her sides. She wasn't going to think about that. She was going to find some way to have what she wanted in spite of…everything.

Of course, if Potter was so violent that he would do to any one of them what he did to Blaise, then there might be no point. She would slip up and irritate him sooner or later, and he would destroy her.

But thinking like that wouldn't free her or give her her freedom back. So she stood up straight and opened her eyes gratefully when Professor Snape swept into the common room. He glanced at her, and then turned in the direction of the boys' bedroom. Draco shouted Greg's name again, and Pansy nodded at the way Professor Snape's eyes flashed.

"He keeps trying to _make _him come out," she said.

The professor drew his wand and gestured up and down with it in a cross shape. Pansy blinked a little. That meant they could cast spells without the permission of their Lord, then. She had been afraid to try, afraid that she would find herself forbidden.

Draco had mentioned watching Professor Snape brew potions, but that was different. You didn't need a wand for that.

There was an abrupt sound, and Pansy, listening hard, realized a moment later that it was the door of the bedroom clicking open. A few seconds later, Greg's heavy footsteps came slowly down the stairs. He paused in the middle of them and stared at Professor Snape, his hands shifting back and forth. It was like he didn't know if he wanted to cover his left arm or his right one, Pansy thought, watching.

Professor Snape looked back at him in silence. Pansy had never been good at reading his face unless he was trying to communicate something to _her_, so she didn't know how he reassured Greg. But a second later, Greg nodded and came the rest of the way down the stairs to sit in the big green armchair he usually took.

Professor Snape turned his head, and Pansy understood the message perfectly well this time. She slinked over and took the small stool to the right of the fireplace.

Draco clattered down the stairs, and paused halfway down, too, although not in the same place that Greg had. Then he walked down with an almost prim demeanor and sat on the chair nearest her.

"I am displeased that we must commence this without the presence of Mr. Zabini," Professor Snape murmured. He turned and cast a spell on the door of the Slytherin common room that Pansy didn't know, or at least she didn't know its effect. It was nonverbal, and the door made a little shivering sound and settled heavily into its frame. Professor Snape nodded and faced them again. "At least we will not be disturbed."

Pansy folded her arms. She wouldn't be the first to say something.

Draco was, of course. "Did you come up with something that would let us resist Potter, sir?" he asked eagerly, and almost rose from the chair.

Professor Snape turned to him. Draco looked down at the floor and brushed at an imaginary piece of dust on his sleeve. Pansy decided that she was glad she wasn't Marked on both arms, even though sometimes it seemed to lead to greater understanding between Professor Snape and Greg and Draco. That understanding didn't always work to Draco's benefit.

"We cannot resist him," Professor Snape said. "But we can use his Gryffindor sensibilities against him, in effect." He grimaced as if smelling an inferior potion. "He does not desire to rule us."

"But," Pansy said, and winced as those black eyes turned to her.

She had spoken, though, which meant she'd already lost whatever advantage being silent would have brought her. She raked her fingers through her hair, because she wanted to do it and she might as well now, and plunged ahead. "I thought the bond would make him rule us whether he wanted to or not. He'll get more and more possessive. He'll want to restrict our movements for our own safety. And it's going to be worse than usual because the whole world is out to get Slytherins and Death Eaters, and he jumped in front of us, so the bond would have interpreted his intent as protective already."

Professor Snape was staring at her. Pansy flushed and stared back. He hadn't paid much attention to her before this, except as part of the Slytherin House it was his duty to lead. Well, why should he? She wasn't brilliant in Potions, which was the only art he cared about, and she hadn't been a Death Eater, and she hadn't been horribly good at Dark Arts. All the paths to advancement in his favor were closed to her.

Professor Snape shook his head a little, and then said, "Ordinarily, you would be right. But most Lords do not have a history of animosity with the people they are ruling. That may work in our favor. And most Lords were not Gryffindors, so committed to the ideal of freedom for everyone." Professor Snape sneered a little, and rubbed at the mark on his right arm. Pansy wondered what he and Potter had talked about in their private conversation. "Potter said that he wants to use the reins loosely. He wants me to—to give you some idea how to live, as well as how to live with it."

Pansy bit her lip. She knew she would think long and hard about those words, because they landed in her soul like fishhooks, and she always thought hard about the words that did that.

Only yesterday she had wanted to offer Potter up to the Dark Lord, and now he was saying things like _that_.

"I don't want to live with it at all," Draco said. "I have _plans_. And Malfoys serve no one."

"Oh, shut up," Pansy snapped, because suddenly it was too much, sitting in the middle of all these serious things, and having Professor Snape look at her like that, and having to think about something _Potter _had said. "Your father knelt at the Dark Lord's feet. Besides, do you think anyone's going to be eager to hire you or give you political connections now? Potter can probably do more for you than he can for the rest of us."

Draco blinked and touched his chin as though she had punched him. Pansy turned around, and she knew she turned absolutely crimson as Professor Snape watched her this time.

"What do you want to do, Miss Parkinson?" Professor Snape asked, when enough time had passed that Pansy had really started to wish that he would look at Greg instead.

Pansy sat up. She had brought this on herself. She would do what she could to live with the consequences of her actions. "I want to go into politics," she said.

"To pass certain laws?" Professor Snape asked. "To be a power behind the throne?"

"To know everything," Pansy said, wondering when he would start laughing. "To hear gossip and trace the places it comes from. To pass certain laws, yes, but to have power, and to make sure that no one else could have power over me."

Professor Snape gave a kind of complicated grimace. "This Lordship will not be easy for you, either."

Pansy shook her head. "And he probably hates me because I wanted to give him up," she said, grateful she could tell someone that. She had tried to mention it to Draco, but as always, he was too preoccupied with whining about his own problems.

"He may not," Professor Snape, his eyes so distant now that Pansy _really _wished she could have a Time-Turner and go back in time to witness that conversation he'd had with Potter. But Professor Snape shook his head and pushed on before Pansy could regret it too much. "Draco?"

"Finally remembered my existence?" Draco folded his arms and glared.

Professor Snape simply gazed at him. Draco's arms dropped to his sides and he looked down, shaking his head.

"I owe him a life-debt because he saved me from that fire," he whispered. "And maybe he owes me one because I told the Snatchers who brought him to Malfoy Manor that I wasn't sure if it was him. But I don't know how they interact with a Lordship bond, and I don't want this, just like you don't." He stroked his left arm for a second, then dropped his hand as if he'd been scalded. "Sometimes I was wondering which arm I should cut off."

"You will do neither," Professor Snape said crisply. "Lor—Mr. Potter may help to protect you from the consequences of taking the Dark Mark, and I will help protect you from the consequences of the other bond. But you need to think about what you want, about what matters to you beyond the life-debts." He turned his head. "Mr. Goyle?"

Pansy looked over, and then sat up and stared. She hadn't felt anything from Greg, the way she had thought she might since they were all in the same kind of bond. But it seemed they were bonded individually to Potter, rather than to each other.

Greg was curled up in the depths of his chair, his arms wrapped around himself, shivering. He opened his mouth, but his teeth chattered together as if he was trying to crack a nut between them. "Vince," he whispered.

Draco stood up and crossed the floor between them to stand with a hand on Greg's shoulder. "He was with me when Vince got burned," he murmured to Pansy, and then knelt down and took Greg's hands. "I'm sorry for mentioning it, Greg. Really."

Pansy thought she heard Professor Snape murmur something tired, and he walked over to Greg's chair and pulled out a thin vial. From the silvery gleam inside, Pansy assumed it was a Calming Draught. When he poured it down Greg's throat, though, it took Greg forever to unclench. At last he let his head sprawl back against the chair and inhaled deeply, then seemed almost to go to sleep.

"And that, of course, is another complication," Professor Snape muttered, and turned to Pansy as if he thought she might need one. Pansy just shook her head. Her heart was beating fast, but she wanted to remain fully awake and aware, to see what happened next.

Professor Snape nodded, and glanced back and forth between her and Draco, gathering them effortlessly into his attention, the way he used to do in Potions class. Pansy had the impression he was doing it for Greg, too, although Greg still seemed out of it.

"Now," Professor Snape said, low and intense. "We will figure out what you want to do with your lives, and you will get to do it. Potter wants to make this as easy on us as possible. He will not get rid of the bond, and neither will we, but we will live with it, or in spite of it. Understand?"

Pansy nodded slowly. She could feel her heart ringing, rising. This might be easier than she had thought, _better _than she had thought, at least if Potter didn't blame her for wanting to throw him to the wolves. Potter's name could be a protection, even a passport to victory in the new Ministry.

It was only a long time afterwards, when she'd started to think of the five of them—six, if you counted Potter—as a team against the world, that she noticed who Professor Snape's words had left out.

_We will figure out what you want to do._

_Not_ what _we _want to do.


	6. Explosions

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Six-Explosions_

Harry stepped out of the infirmary, his hand against his forehead. What Healer Kislik showed him had been extraordinarily complicated, even by her standards, he thought. At least, she hadn't shown much impatience when he had to slow down and ask about some parts again. She had performed the incantations and wand movements until Harry thought he could probably do them in his sleep.

"Harry! Where _were _you?"

Harry started back. Ron and Hermione practically pounced on him as he came around the corner. Hermione's face was pale, and Ron's was red. Harry looked around, automatically assuming that some of the captured Death Eaters must have broken free or something, but the damage he could see to the walls all looked like damage that had been inflicted during the final battle.

"What do you mean?" he asked, turning back to them. "Were you looking for me?"

"We knew you had gone to see to Zabini," said Ron, gripping Harry's arm and feeling around it gingerly as though to make sure he was still flesh and blood. "But when we tried to go in, the door was locked, and no one seemed sure where you had gone after that."

Harry blinked at them in wonder. Then he said, "The Healer was showing me ways I could weaken the bond."

"The _Healer_?" Ron darted the blackest scowl Harry had ever seen him wear for someone who wasn't a Slytherin at the door of the hospital wing. "What does she know about it? Healers don't talk about bonds."

"She said she did," said Hermione, but her face had gained only a little color and she had one hand up in front of her as though she was turning the pages of an invisible book. "She said she worked with the victims of Lordship bonds. But...Harry, what did she _do_?"

Harry scratched the back of his head. "Listen, you don't need to worry about me," he said. "She's done this with people in the past. She showed me a few spells that should help me to separate the part of my mind that's influenced by the Lord bond from the rest, and if I don't have the thoughts that urge me to protect them and make them obey me, then the Slytherins should get to be free on their own."

"Separate parts of your _mind_?" Hermione's voice was soaring, and Harry flinched. He didn't want Healer Kislik overhearing them and deciding that she hadn't done a good enough job, and he didn't want them waking Zabini up. He herded his friends a few meters away from the door and listened to Hermione. "But you weren't good at Occlumency or Legilimency. Is this the same thing? Could it hurt you?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't think so." His friends were staring at him, unimpressed, and Harry sighed. "I know. It's unknown. But this kind of bond is unknown, too. It's at least worth trying a few techniques to try and get it weaker, don't you think?"

He expected Hermione to protest or maybe start lecturing him on the evils of trusting someone he didn't know, and after that, Harry would have retorted that he was trusting _Slytherins, _and that was worse than strangers. He didn't expect Hermione to march forwards, seize one of his eyelids, and pull it back. Harry stared at her as she stared into his eyes, and then waved his hand at her to get her to let go. Hermione stepped backwards, releasing his eyelid at the same time, and nodded briskly.

"Do you have any idea how _tired _you still are?" she asked Harry. "Not to mention that it looks like you're partially in shock. You need to go and rest, not think about Healer techniques or Lordship bonds for right now."

Harry shook his head. "But Zabini still isn't awake, and he's going to have nerve damage," he muttered. His vision was swimming, all right, and his hand still shook when he thought about the way he had nearly murdered Zabini, but that didn't mean he could just _go to bed. _What would happen if one of his Slytherins needed him when he was asleep?

"We'll handle it," Ron said, in his gentle "tower of strength" voice. He'd sounded like that when he talked about coming back and trying to find them on the Horcrux hunt. "Whatever it is, we'll handle it." He gave Harry a little shove. "You've been white as Peeves since you came in from the Forest with Zabini. We would have made you go to bed before this, but we thought you needed to talk with people. _People, _not Healers."

"His victims count as people, too."

Harry knew without turning that the voice belonged to Healer Kislik. He would have turned back and apologized, but Ron pushed him down the corridor, and Harry heard Hermione turning to face Kislik without pausing.

"Harry said that you had used those techniques to weaken bonds in the past," Hermione's voice was saying, sweet and strong. "Can you give me the names of people they worked on? I thought I could look up their situations in the books in the library and see how similar they are to the bond Harry is in. That might give us even more ideas about getting both him and the Slytherins free."

"Their cases are both within the last ten years," Kislik said. "Too recent to be in most books."

"In back files of the _Daily Prophet, _then," Hermione said, and her voice had deepened to what Harry recognized as a dangerous point. "Their names?"

Then Harry and Ron got around the corner, and Harry couldn't hear Hermione anymore. He shook his head and glanced at Ron out of one eye. His swimming vision had stabilized a little, but he had decided it was still a good idea to go to bed, if only because people would probably need him later. His Slytherins. People who wanted to arrest his Slytherins and would need him to explain. _Ginny_.

"She's scary, mate," Harry said.

"Of course she is," Ron said, and his voice was smug and pleased and proud. "Especially when she's defending one of her best friends from someone who wants to take advantage of him."

"Wait? Take advantage?" Harry put a hand to his aching head. The symptoms had come on so _suddenly. _He wondered if Hermione had managed to suggest them so strongly that he had just started taking them over. "Why would Healer Kislik want to take advantage of me? I don't have anything she wants. Quite the opposite," he added, thinking of the way she had crouched in front of Blaise like an enraged dragon.

Ron studied Harry with one eyebrow raised. "You really don't understand why?" he asked. "When you're the savior of the wizarding world, the Defeater of Voldemort, an accidental Lord, and someone with more power than he knows what to do with?"

Harry could feel heat like a blush on his face. He reckoned it might be a fever, though. Stupid Hermione and her sickness-causing words. "Okay, fine. But she seemed to-I don't know, she seemed to hate me. I don't think she would want anything from me."

"All the more reason for her to try to get something," Ron said, but sighed and shook his head when Harry opened his mouth to argue. "You're also probably sick and delusional. Magical exhaustion, shock, maybe even heatstroke. Let's get you to bed."

Harry opened his mouth to protest _heatstroke_, but Ron was already urging him down the corridor, and he went with it. Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to let other people handle things for a while.

It was only when he had tumbled ungracefully into bed that he realized he had once again thought of _the _Slytherins as _his _Slytherins.

Harry grimaced and shut his eyes. He could feel his brain groping towards the instructions that Healer Kislik had given him for separating the parts of his mind into distinct beings, imprisoning the part of him influenced by the bond and starving it into submission.

But he was too tired to manage it. After a few ineffective pushes against the quicksilver urgings of the bond in his mind, Harry gave in to a different kind of pressure and fell asleep.

* * *

God, his arm _hurt_, and spirals of twisting black and gold paraded across the back of his eyelids. What was going on?

Groaning, Blaise brought one hand up to his right arm, somewhat surprised to realize that it was still attached. It didn't seem beyond Potter to have cut it off for Blaise's insolence in attacking him.

_But then, how would he assert his claim over me? _

Blaise turned his head. He knew the surface beneath him was too soft to have been the leaves he'd been lying on in the Forest, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was somewhere safe. But the walls had the soft white glare of the hospital wing, so that was all right. And someone sat beside his bed, a shadow too tall to be Potter, which might or might not be good.

Blaise turned towards it, grimacing as his arm moved. At least he still had it, but it dragged and pulled in odd ways, and he expected the skin to be as shiny and red-rimmed as sleepless eyes when he looked down at it. It wasn't. Blaise winced. It was almost worse that it wasn't.

"You have magical nerve damage," said the shadow, who bent close enough now for Blaise to make out a female face, and long tumbling waves of hair. "Magic can heal it, but it was a close-run thing."

"What happened after Potter attacked me?" Blaise asked, ignoring the entirely separate flare of pain in his shield mark for the disrespectful way he had referred to his Lord. If Potter wanted to make a big deal of it, he would have to come back and do so. Blaise wasn't going to give in.

The woman slowly smiled and leaned back. Blaise wondered how he could have overlooked before that she wore the brilliant lime robes of a Healer, or the serpentine quality of that smile.

"I am Healer Kislik," she whispered. "And if you are still disposed to struggle for your freedom after Potter inflicted the pain of your bond on you and could not stop it except by forgiving you for your attack, then I will support you."

Blaise understood, with his mother's voice murmuring in the back of his mind. _Sometimes you will find someone who genuinely believes you to be a victim, because of your age or my reputation if nothing else. Such pity is not offensive. It is a weapon. Take advantage of it and use it when you find it, instead of immediately repudiating it by displaying your pride and strength._

Blaise had never met someone like this before, immediately disposed to be on his side, so he had never had to use his mother's advice before. But now he did, and he widened his eyes and nodded as hard as he could. Let the Healer think him eager and pathetic.

"Teach me how," he said.

* * *

Severus grimaced and leaned further back in his chair, his hand over his right arm. This was becoming a common occurrence of no little inconvenience.

And this time, he couldn't determine what the bond wanted. There were the sharp spikes of dark pain he had felt when he thought about being disloyal to Potter, but this time, he hadn't. He hadn't even been thinking about Potter for the last three minutes, blessedly, as he worked on a stronger version of a Calming Draught for Mr. Goyle.

And there was a tug that made Severus stand up and cross to the door of his office, expecting to find Potter on the other side.

He wasn't, but when Severus opened his door to reveal the staircase beyond, the pull was suddenly much clearer and stronger, like a sound that wasn't muffled by stone anymore. Severus ground his teeth as he began to walk towards the stairs. What had Potter _possibly _got himself into between the time he'd talked to Severus and now, not even an hour later?

Because he really had no choice, and it was better and more dignified than fighting, Severus let himself follow the pull. It took him up the staircase, out of the dungeons altogether, up to the entrance hall. He glanced around, and saw no one in particular watching him. There was a clump of Aurors off to the side, but they didn't glance at him, so involved in a heated conversation that Severus slipped past them easily and up the next staircase.

The one that aimed at the hospital wing, Severus thought, rolling his eyes. Of _course _Potter had done something to himself in the time between when he and Severus talked and now. Because that was the way he ran his world.

It would be the way he ran Severus's world, too, if Severus didn't watch out.

Severus shook his head and made his way to the door of the hospital wing. He could hear voices inside as he got close, but that wasn't unusual. There would be victims from the Final Battle here, now. He was only surprised that he heard two voices, instead of the maudlin gathering of sobbing and wailing that he would have expected to afflict his ears.

He put his hand out and flicked the door open. Why not? There was no need to hide that he was coming from Potter, who had probably already felt him.

But when he stepped into the hospital wing, no Potter was there. Severus blinked and glanced at the nearest bed, the one that held the voices. Well, one voice. Young Mr. Zabini stopped and blinked at him, staring as though Severus had come back from the dead just now instead of yesterday.

Opposite him sat a Healer who came to her feet with a smooth grace. Severus stared at her. The lime-green robes didn't fool him. She probably really was the Healer she said she was now-it would be stupid to lie about that, with other Healers around and the lie so easily exposed-but she had been trained as a duelist sometime in the past.

The Healer bowed to Severus and moved a little to the side. Shielding Zabini, Severus thought. He would have to curse over her shoulder to reach him.

_But she must know that I am the Head of Slytherin House, and have no reason to hurt one of my Slytherins..._

Then Severus's arm burned again, and he grimaced. He wasn't here to protect Zabini at all, was he? Or Potter. Except indirectly.

Yes, accidental Lord bonds could position someone this way. The evidence that they could was extremely limited and sometimes contradictory, but Severus had read enough of the evidence to see the pattern behind it. That did not mean that he welcomed the role the bond was trying to set him up for, or that he would rejoice in what it would mean once he was past this first confrontation.

But the Healer's eyes were darkening on him, and she was gripping her wand, and someone trained as both a Healer and a duelist was not an opponent to underestimate. Severus yanked his attention back to the moment and spoke over her shoulder to Zabini, whose face he could still just see. "If you are wise, Mr. Zabini, you will cease your rebellion against Lord Har-Lord Potter this instant."

Severus would have rolled his eyes at his slip if he was alone. Both versions of that title sounded utterly ridiculous, and he didn't care how much his mark burned, but he would have expected better of himself than to yield to the temptation to use the first one.

"Why should he not be rebellious?" the Healer demanded, stepping forwards. "When his freedom and future have been stolen from him, and he might have a chance at getting them back if he fights?"

Severus studied her a moment. "Hufflepuff?" he asked. A Gryffindor might have uttered much the same sentiments, but a Gryffindor also would have known better than to expect a Slytherin to pay attention to them.

The Healer's wand swung around to focus on him. Severus didn't roll his eyes this time, either, but the test of his self-control was more severe. "What right do you have to question me?" whispered the woman.

"I only wanted to know your House," Severus said blandly, watching Zabini's face. He might be renowned for his expressionlessness among people his own age, but Severus could read the emotions dancing in his face as well as he could read lightning in the skies. Perhaps the bond was helping in that respect. "I hardly think asking it is an insult."

"You made it into one."

Severus nodded a little. "Hufflepuff," he said, and once again focused on Zabini. He might or might be able to do something with the Healer, although if she attacked him, she would find out that someone who had not been trained by a master could still be deadly in a duel. "Mr. Zabini. You should remember that our future legal and social standing depends entirely on our Lord's say-so. You might or might not care more about them than your own, physical life. I do not know. But you have been punished once, and you will be punished again, if you insist on rebelling further."

Zabini opened his mouth, but the Healer sprang in before he could speak. Severus smiled slightly. Let her think it was in contempt of her words. He had smiled because he had seen the way Zabini's throat bobbed as he glared at the Healer's back. Protection or not, he didn't appreciate the way she had interrupted him when he wanted to make his own point.

"He did nothing that deserved punishment," the Healer said, and her eyes glittered with spirit that Severus could have admired if she was spending it in a different cause. "He defended his life, his freedom. How is _that _worthy of punishment?"

"What spell did you use on our Lord?" Severus asked Zabini this time. If the bond was going to insist on Severus addressing the boy with terms of respect, then better the generic reference than either of the stupid titles.

The Healer turned around, a sign that she didn't know, either. Severus could see more of Zabini's face now, but he wasn't sure that he considered that an advantage, as Zabini's hands played with the sheets on his hospital bed for a second before he said, "The Stopping Charm."

The Healer glared at Severus. Severus ignored her, and asked quietly, "Applied where?"

Zabini hesitated one more time, then touched his right arm as if the phantom pain of his nerve damage still lingered and said, "To the valves of his heart."

Severus closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. There was so much he wanted to say, and he had a hard time choosing. As it was, he heard the Healer drawing in her breath to talk again and said the first thing that balanced on the edge of his tongue. "The bond was trying to kill you when it reacted, do you understand that? And it was the bond that reacted, not _him_. It ended only because he forgave you, because he was concerned about your life." Severus opened his eyes and added, with a part of him that was probably influenced by the bond but much more by his own disdain for stupidity, "Though I am not certain _why_."

"Every human life-" the Healer began with another of her trivial commonplaces.

Severus paid her no mind, never removing his eyes from Zabni as he moved another step closer. "Lordship bonds slaughter the vassals that try and kill their Lords," he told Zabini. "It's the ultimate violation of the rules, the ultimate treachery. Working against their interests earns much milder punishment, especially because the vassal doesn't always know what _is _in their Lord's best interests without explicit orders. But trying to kill them? The bond only has one way to interpret that, and that's in violation of its promises."

"I didn't want to make a promise to him!" Zabini snapped, both arms folded to hide the mark now. "No one asked me if I did!"

Severus choked on his own rage. The Healer was looking back and forth between them as though trying to decide who was victimizing whom, and it was easy to move past her altogether and stand there looking down on Zabini. Zabini scrambled away until his back was touching the pillow at the head of the bed, and acted as though he was trying to shut down his breathing.

Severus pulled his lips back from his teeth. Zabini whimpered and cowered promptly. Severus rolled his eyes freely this time. And the boy was his bondmate? Severus had not expected great things from Gregory Goyle, who was suffering from trauma as well as his inherent dimness, or from Draco, who would have a most profound fit of the sullens at becoming part of something other than his family-at least until he figured out that Potter was taking the protective place that his parents had once held. But he had dared to hope that Parkinson and Zabini might not be much trouble, an impression only increased by Parkinson's unexpected demonstration of intelligence earlier today.

Now...

"You think _you _have been treated unfairly, Mr. Zabini?" he whispered, and shook both sleeves back, lifting his arms to bare the silver shield of Potter's bond and the twining, ugly serpent of the Dark Mark. Zabini tried to look at one and then the other, and ended up shutting his eyes. Severus sneered, only a little sorrowful that there was no one there to appreciate it but the Healer. "Try being Marked twice. Try laboring under _multiple _Unbreakable Vows and killing the one man who might have been able to provide some kind of escape. Try _serving _that man and knowing that even the death of the Dark Lord would not free you from this service, because some submissions to leadership last beyond one's life. Try surviving, unexpectedly, and being required to submit to yet another bonding, yet another claiming, yet another lifetime of service." He heard the Healer saying something about him not being required to submit, but Severus didn't bother to glance at her, boring with all his strength into Zabini's stubborn head. "And then try to have the bond manipulating you into the Lord's Shield."

Zabini lifted his right arm and blinked at it.

Severus shook his head. "Some Lordship bonds, especially those to a limited number of vassals, work by manipulating the subordinates into certain positions relative to the Lord," he said. His voice made Zabini look at him, and although he whimpered, he did not close his eyes again. "The Lord's Shield is one of those. Basically, I am in charge of making sure that the rest of my _fellow idiots _don't do something that would cause harm to their Lord when the Lord isn't present to deal with it himself. It seems that what distresses _our _Lord the most is having to discipline his vassals. There is no other reason that I would feel, not his pain and desire for aid, but your own misguided attempt to rebel once more. I will tell you this: _Do not tempt my wand. _If you think the pain that the bond inflicts is bad, then you do not want to taste mine. Because I may not have as deep a connection to you as Lord Potter does, but my magic _will not stop_."

He held Zabini's eyes for some seconds more, until Zabini bowed his head. Not submitting to Potter, Severus was certain of that. But submission to fear of Severus would certainly do for now.

He turned and stalked out of the hospital wing, ignoring the Healer's attempt to corner him. Whether she was going to accuse him of evil complicity in the bond or of being a victim who just needed counseling, he didn't care.

Severus paused in the corridor outside the infirmary and waited. There was no tugging on the bond now, but rather a soft, gentle pulsing in the back of his mind. Wherever he was, Potter was smiling, a trouble that he hadn't exactly sensed leaving him.

Severus rolled his eyes one more time as he turned back to the dungeons, and ignored the certainty, not coming from the bond but from his own understanding of things, that Potter would have preferred him to handle Zabini in a different way. He might have to be his Lord's Shield, but he would make the shield out of Dark magic and bad temper, not bleating Gryffindor mercy.


	7. The Changeover

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven-The Changeover_

Draco stared as Professor Snape walked back into the Slytherin common room with the bubbling potion in his hands. He had thought it would take him longer than that to make a more effective Calming Draught, but perhaps he had underestimated how good the Professor was at Potions.

It was more than that, though, Draco decided, after a cautious study of Professor Snape's face. He moved as though someone had been hurting him, a kind of movement Draco was really familiar with after being the Dark Lord's torturer. His hand on the potion shook once as Draco watched, then firmed.

_Did Potter do this to him? _

Professor Snape turned towards him as he had the thought, and his eyes narrowed. Draco flinched. Could he really Legilimize someone from _across the room? _Or maybe Draco's thought had just been that loud.

"Listen to me carefully, Draco," Professor Snape whispered. "I have already informed Mr. Zabini. You are _not _to go around planning rebellion against our Lord and planning to kill him, you understand? Because the bond is maneuvering me into a position as Shield where I can feel such thoughts and will have to protect Potter. I do _not _enjoy such feelings. Do you understand me?"

Draco had to ask, because it seemed so incredible. "Is that really what Blaise tried to do to Lord-Potter?" Damn it, he had wanted to speak Potter's last name without the title, but it really wasn't worth it, with the sharp jab in the back of his mind. "He tried to kill him?" He'd suspected that, but it was different having it confirmed.

Professor Snape studied him, and then inclined his head. His irritation had stopped rising off him like steam, which Draco reckoned was a good thing. "He did. He was not intelligent enough to realize it was the bond that would retaliate to any attempt to kill off his Lord, not Potter. Potter is _distressed _by the effects." Professor Snape sneered the word. "I may have to fend off any future attempts by other vassals to manipulate _him_, or plot against him. I am not _enthusiastic _about the prospect of herding you like children for the rest of my life." Draco had seen the professor pinch his nose before, but never as strongly as he did then.

Draco stood up straight. He didn't wish to be thought a useless child, and after listening to Pansy earlier, and the way Professor Snape had responded to her, he thought that Professor Snape might be seeing him that way. "I won't give you cause to worry about me," he said, as strongly and calmly as he could. "Don't worry. No matter what. I can-I can live with this, and carry the burden. Maybe even help you."

Professor Snape looked at him the way that someone would who doubted him. Draco almost snapped something, but held it back. That was what a child would do, not an adult.

He held in the words, and Professor Snape ended up nodding and then saying, "Perhaps you can, at that. I do not yet know if all of us will hold different positions in the bond, or perhaps they will change depending on the circumstances. If they change..." He contemplated Draco in silence so sheer that Draco found himself holding his breath, and then said, "I do not expect your resolution to last. But in the meantime, you may visit Mr. Zabini in the hospital wing. There is a Healer that has been speaking with him."

"Healer Kislik?" Draco asked.

Professor Snape made a dismissive gesture with one sleeve. "I do not recall. But she has been filling Mr. Zabini's head with dangerous nonsense about a vassal's right to rebel." Draco winced a little as he felt a sharp twinge travel down his spine. That was the bond, but it felt as though it had come from the stem of his own brain. "I wish to know what she said to him, other than the nonsense she repeated to me. What she might have told him to do."

Draco nodded, and watched as Professor Snape went up the stairs to the bedroom he shared-_used _to share with Greg and Blaise and Theo and Vince.

_Vince_.

Draco dug his fingernails into his palms. He could still see Vince burning if he closed his eyes and concentrated on it, but that was all the more reason not to fall victim to such weakness. He was not a child. He was not someone the professor would have to take care of, like Greg.

But there was only one way to prove his independence and his usefulness, and oddly enough, it came from doing what he was told.

Draco chuckled grimly under his breath as he crossed the common room towards the door. If he had to do that, he could do that. Even Professor Snape had never despised what Draco could do when he put his mind to it, only the _particular _things Draco had done. He had succeeded in bringing Death Eaters into the school, hadn't he?

The bond rang like bronze in the back of his mind, making Draco flinch. Probably because that action had hurt his Lord.

But it meant he had the will and the determination, and although he really wanted to sit back and let someone take care of him, he knew what his father would say to such a thing, how Professor Snape would look. If he played his cards right, maybe he would have someone to take care of him later.

* * *

"It's _midnight_?"

Harry sat up in bed, pinching his own ears and trying to shake the feeling of cotton wool out of his head. He couldn't believe what Hermione had said, but then, he had felt this awake at this hour of the night before. Just more usually because he'd been excited about sneaking around after clues to Hogwarts's mysteries, not because he'd slept most of the day.

Hermione, swinging her feet primly beside him, gave a little sniff. "Yes, it is. And I think you needed the sleep."

Harry shut his mouth on the criticism he'd been about to make, and sat up more instead. "Is there any food here? I'm starving."

"Right," Ron said, in an emphatic voice that said he recognized the need for food better than Hermione did, and handed over a metal tray laden with bangers, toast, small sandwiches, cheese, and other odd mixtures of lunch and breakfast foods. Harry didn't care. He grabbed the fork off the side and started eating.

"We should talk about what Healer Kislik suggested," Hermione said. Harry saw that she had a rustling pile of newspapers under one arm, and a book beside her on the bed. She was looking at him with burning eyes, the way she always did when she had a new investigation to start.

Ron laid a calming hand on Hermione's arm. "Let Harry eat. You found out enough about her to show she wasn't what we thought she was, right?"

Hermione nodded and dug into the papers while Harry dug into his bangers. Harry kept his head down and rubbed his right arm cautiously against the side of the tray. At the moment, there was no feeling in the shield mark, not pain and not fire. He hoped that was a sign that Zabini was still okay, and that no other Slytherins needed him right now.

"I found that there _were _two cases of weakened Lordship bonds in the last ten years," said Hermione, and read aloud from an article that looked like it was on the front page, although Harry couldn't see it that well from where he was sitting. "'This publication regrets to report the death of Jacinta Moore, commonly known as Lady Moore, on the 10th of September. Lady Moore's vassals attended the funeral.'"

Harry blinked. "All right. So what?"

Hermione stared levelly at him. "So she was fifty, which is no age at all for a witch, and her health was great. She'd been working with a program called the Freedom Fighters, though. It seems they were a mix of Healers and Potions masters and former Aurors. They wanted to weaken Lordship bonds and set the vassals free."

"What did she die of?" Harry said, and then quickly stuffed his mouth full as Ron shook his head at Harry, admonishing him for starting an argument with Hermione this way.

"A heart attack," Hermione said.

Harry shrugged. "Well, I'll watch out for any."

Hermione leaned forwards. "This next article," she said, pulling out another _Daily Prophet _from beneath the first one and unfolding it with a sound like a gunshot, "says that she first had heart trouble when she was working with the Freedom Fighters. That was two years before her death. Never before that. What does that sound like to you?"

"That someone killed her?" Ron offered, leaning to look at the paper over Hermione's shoulder. "Maybe one of them used a spell on her like the one Zabini tried to use on Harry." He shot Harry a disgusted look. "Zabini tried to kill you, and you're still defending him," he muttered. "You were more rational about Voldemort."

"Voldemort made the choice to come after me and mark me," Harry snapped, since his mouth was free. "Zabini didn't choose to be marked."

"I don't think it has anything to do with murder," Hermione said. "Unless you consider that a Healer can murder someone by giving them the wrong potion when they don't know someone is allergic to it, and can't be bothered to research enough to find out. _I _think it sounds like that. Lady Moore had been a Lady for twenty years. That was enough to change both her body and brain to accept the bond."

"Then you shouldn't be worried about me, since I've been bonded for only a day and a half," Harry said, and stabbed his fork into a sandwich. Then he put down the fork and picked the sandwich up in his fingers, because Ron was shaking his head at him again, and angry at Hermione or not, there were right ways and wrong ways to eat a sandwich.

"It says that they were working with her to teach her certain techniques to separate the part of her mind that considered her vassals _hers _off from the rest," Hermione said. "And that was when she first experienced heart trouble, when she mastered them."

Harry put down his fork and raked his fingers through his hair. If he thought about it, he knew that his friends were only trying to help him.

But Healer Kislik had said the same thing. And Harry hadn't known her for a long time, but he couldn't mistake that passion to help the Slytherins.

_Does she want to help you? _

The voice might have been Snape's, although Harry didn't think it was. He took a deep breath and turned to Hermione. "How could spells that affected the mind cause a heart attack?"

Hermione peered directly at him. "Are you agreeing that that _might _be what happened?"

Harry licked his lips and nodded. "All right, I am. But Healer Kislik didn't give me any names."

"She did me." Hermione smiled smugly and unfolded the paper over her knees. "You have to understand, Harry. I do think that she wants to free people from Lordship bonds, and most of the time, I would agree with her. But that was before I did research on Lordship bonds." She shook her head, eyes dark and lip caught between her teeth. "It's not like house-elves, where only one person is affected. The Lord is affected, too. Or the Lady," she added prudently. "The bond sinks into you and _changes _you."

"Then maybe the Healer is right and it's a disease," Harry countered at once. He could still hear Healer Kislik's voice shaking as she explained to him what he could do to section off the parts of his mind that would demand obedience and protection from his vassals. "We can cure it if we try hard enough."

"If the cure kills you, what good is it?" Hermione closed her fingers ruthlessly in the sheets of his bed. "The other Lord whose name she gave me died, too. One day there was a story in the papers about how he was hoping to release his vassals soon and one of them had got away with rebelling against him, and the next day he was dead."

Harry held out his hand. "What was his name?"

"David Arland," Hermione said at once, and extended one set of papers towards him. Harry scanned the articles quickly. Yes, it looked exactly as Hermione had said it did. The paper carried a photograph of David Arland, an older wizard with a long grey beard that he wore tucked into his belt. The first article said, _REVOLUTIONARY LORD SEEKING TO FREE VASSALS._

And then there was the notice of his death, a few days later, although not on the front page, maybe because it wasn't so dramatic. A heart attack, just like the one that had killed Lady Moore.

Harry laid the papers down and closed his eyes. "I don't _want _them," he whispered.

"I know, mate." Ron put a hand on his shoulder.

"But I don't want-" Harry shifted restlessly. It had sounded so seamless, so necessary and harmless, when Healer Kislik explained everything. And he didn't think she'd lied, not really. She knew enough about the subject to sound great and convincing.

_But maybe she convinced herself along with everyone else. And I don't want to be convinced and humored and treated along as though I was this little kid who knew nothing about anything. I want to make my own choices. If I have the Lordship bond, then I can still do it. I put up with the Dursleys and Voldemort for all those years._

Harry had to shake his head, though. Those two situations, he'd always planned to escape. People had been encouraging him to believe he could defeat Voldemort almost the minute Harry learned about him, and Harry had known he could move away from the Dursleys when he was an adult, even before he knew he was a wizard. The Lordship bond might always be with him.

So it went back to the discussion he'd had with Snape, about helping the Slytherins to achieve what they wanted and live under the bond. No miraculous solution. Harry was reluctant to let go of that possibility, but if it came down to who to trust, Hermione or Kislik, there was no contest.

"Can you keep researching?" he asked Hermione, knowing his voice was heavy. "If there's something out there on breaking accidental bonds, I'd hate to _miss _it because I thought it was impossible and gave up looking."

Hermione gave a quick nod, her hand pressed against his back. "I'll do everything I can, Harry. I just don't think Kislik's spells are the answer."

_Maybe a kind of answer. _Harry tucked one chance into the back of his mind. The articles hadn't said that the Lord's and Lady's vassals died, just them. If it ever got to the point where Harry just couldn't do it anymore, and he wanted to see the Slytherins free...

But his life seemed lighter to him because he had been so close to giving it away in the Forbidden Forest. Hermione would probably tell him to wait and think about it, and that was a good idea.

"Let me finish this," he said, picking up his tray of food again, "and you can tell me what else has happened in the last few hours."

* * *

Draco tensed a little as he knocked on the door of the Defense classroom. He'd had to watch his classmates cursed here throughout most of the year. But it also made sense as a sanctuary, he had to admit. The corridor was thick with Dark magic. Not a lot of people would be looking here.

The door opened, and his mother's slender hand beckoned him in. Draco ducked inside quickly and heard the door shut, the Inviolate Charm springing up on it again, a charm that wouldn't even let anyone who had been outside the room when the spell was cast _think _of the door.

The classroom had other charms shimmering around it, Draco saw when he had the chance to look. Far more than had been there the last time he saw his parents, early that morning. Delicate, arching webs of wards seemed to have turned the high walls to ice. The sole window in the classroom bore enough defensive hexes to dim the glass. And the chairs his parents had decided to use bore both conjured cushions _and _defenses so deep they might as well have been inherent to the wood.

Draco nodded, understanding. The situation had gone so volatile in a matter of hours that his parents had no choice. They didn't know whether Aurors would arrest them or Lord-fine, _Lord _Potter would speak up for them, and until they had more information about which way to jump, they would rather protect themselves.

"What news do you have?"

Draco drew himself up. He might have someone else to report to now, but his father had been his first and youngest source of awe. Seated on a simple wooden chair, Lucius could still make it look like a throne.

"I know that Zabini's in the hospital wing for rebelling against our Lord," he said. He had to drop his eyes to the floor, because the expression on his father's face when Draco spoke of Potter wasn't bearable. "And a Healer has tried to persuade both Zabini and Potter that they can break free of the bond."

"Is there any merit in such stories?" It was his mother who asked, coming to stand behind Lucius with her hand on his shoulder. Draco looked closely at her and saw how white her face was, how her hand trembled. He couldn't despise her for that, though. He felt much the same way. He thought the only reason no one had noticed was that all the other Slytherins in his year had their own problems with the bond.

_Professor Snape might have noticed, though. And maybe Potter, if he ever paid attention to me._

The burn of old resentment calmed and grounded Draco, and he was able to shake his head. "Professor Snape doesn't think so. Zabini was guarded with me, but I don't think he believes as much as he wants to. Professor Snape almost took his bollocks off for trying to get out of the bond."

"Severus?" Lucius's eyebrows rose. "Interesting. If there was one person alive who did not want to serve under the Potter boy, I would imagine Severus would be the one."

Draco drew in his breath in anger, and then shut his eyes and bowed his head between his arms. He could hear Narcissa's quick step in his direction, and the shuffle as she stopped. Draco knew Lucius would have caught her with a look, as effective as a touch.

"What is it, my son?" Lucius's voice was as smooth and calm as moonlight.

"It makes me angry when you speak of him that way," Draco mumbled, eyes on the floor. It was covered with a sharp sheen that Cleaning Charms left when applied to dust. Draco tried not to look at the trace of blood that had appeared when the Carrows tortured one of the Hufflepuff first-years months ago. "He's my Lord. I know that you despise him, but can you please not talk about him that way?"

Silence. Draco flinched, knowing what would come next: the inevitable speech on loyalty to his family, how it was the highest good, how no Malfoy owed anything else to anyone. Draco had begun to think, during the last year, that that kind of clashed with the way his father bowed to the Dark Lord, but he had had no one to talk to about it, and every reason to pull together with his family during his terror.

Then Lucius stood up from his chair and crossed the floor to stand in front of him. Draco took another deep breath and looked up. Lucius disliked challenges, but he disliked cowardice more. One should know exactly how one would react in any given situation, he had taught Draco, and that meant that Draco had to know his own strengths and refuse to give in to fear. And cowardice was the fear felt by those who did not know if they were equal to the challenges to come.

"Well done," Lucius told him quietly. "That is not an aspect I had considered, and I should have. We will watch our words." Draco saw his mother's face over Lucius's shoulder, nodding, and relaxed with a loud sigh.

"I don't know if _he _knows anything about the events of the last few hours," Draco said. "Professor Snape sent me to talk to Zabini because he thought it was possible that I could learn more about what the Healer had said to him. But he wouldn't talk to me." Draco frowned a little. Blaise had been _so _morose and stubborn that it was hard not to wonder exactly what Professor Snape had said to him.

"So you have not seen your Lord today?" Narcissa asked warily.

"I saw him when he came back from the Forest," Draco said. "It turns out that-that Zabini tried to kill him, and the bond responded, and Potter stopped it. Zabini was lucky not to die."

Lucius's hand closed so hard on his shoulder that Draco stared at his father. Lucius's lips were pinched, and he shook his head a few times as though he didn't know what to say, but found the words at last.

"I don't want you to challenge your Lord," he whispered. "We may be able to parlay this into political power if we play it right, but in the meantime, we _cannot _risk you. Do you understand?"

Draco nodded, glad that he had locked his legs and wouldn't tremble in front of his father. Compulsion to stand aside from obstructing Potter because he was Draco's Lord or not, Draco hadn't looked forward to defining his own position between his identities as Malfoy and as vassal. He _certainly _hadn't thought his parents would make it this easy for him.

"Oh!" He remembered suddenly, and looked up at his father. "Professor Snape said something about how he was becoming Lord Potter's Shield. That he can feel when someone else is rebelling against the bond and he's in charge of suppressing the rebellion. He said that the bond might put the rest of us in similar positions, but he's not sure yet. That's interesting, isn't it?" Draco couldn't remember hearing of anything like it before, but he had to admit that he hadn't paid that much attention to Lordship bonds before now. What the Dark Lord had with his followers was not the same thing, and it had seemed unlikely Draco would ever be involved in one.

Lucius blinked, but it was his mother who answered, gliding forwards and putting her hands on both his shoulders. Draco smiled into her face. There was no one who loved him as she did, he knew.

"Draco," Narcissa whispered. "Your Lord owes me a life-debt, for saving him in the Forest and lying to _him_ that your Lord was dead." Draco shuddered a little, knowing full-well that his mother meant a different _him_ than Draco did when she spoke. "Use this, and the life-debts you told me that you owe him, to get close to him. It is _imperative _that the bond give you a good position, that you not be relegated to the outskirts."

"Narcissa..." Draco's father began.

"No, Lucius." His mother did not often speak like that, but when she did, even Lucius fell silent. "This is your life, now," Narcissa told Draco, and shook him a little. "You must live with it, your request to us tells me that. Well, you _will _live with it. But you will do so in a way that allows you as much power and freedom as possible, do you understand?"

With that, the light broke on Draco, and he thought he might understand, better than any of them-better than Professor Snape with his bitterness and hatred, than Pansy with her broken ambitions, than Greg with his disordered mind, than Blaise with his impotent anger-how to be strong under a Lordship bond.

"Yes, Mother," he whispered fiercely. "You can count on me."

And there was only warmth in his shield mark.


	8. Auror Responses

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight-Auror Responses_

"Mr. Potter, we have to speak to you."

Harry halted in the middle of the staircase and put his chin up, trying to do it haughtily. He could feel Hermione and Ron coming to a stop on either side of him, putting their hands on his shoulders. That should present a more impressive picture, he hoped. But then he remembered something else and arranged his arms so that everyone who was coming up the stairs beneath him could see the silver shield.

The nearest Auror faltered a little, and Harry smiled. He _hated _that he had to do this, really, to think all the time about how other people would take things and what they would think of him, but it seemed to be connected with the Lordship bond down to its very roots, from what Hermione had told him. Besides, he probably would have had to do it anyway. What the Boy-Who-Lived did and thought was important to the public, too, and Harry wouldn't want to get one of his friends in trouble because he'd ignored basic caution.

"I must _insist _that you listen to us," said the lead Auror, a tall, burly man in flowing robes with gold trim on them.

"I haven't refused yet," Harry said. He felt Hermione tense beside him, and then relax again. He wanted to snort at her. He had some basic common sense. It included the right thing to say about stupid accusations like the ones the Auror was making. Besides, this was all the sort of thing that Harry would have said to Uncle Vernon and Snape more often if he didn't have to watch his tongue. "Could you tell me your names?"

"Steerforth Umson," said the Auror, with a sigh at the end of the words, as if it was just _too much _that Harry should want to know his name. "These are my colleagues, Aurors Stephanie McAnders and Hugh Refortson." He waved his hand at the two behind him, a sharp-faced, alert woman and a man so tall that Harry had to keep from shrinking back. "But you need to know that several of your vassals are going to be charged with Death Eater crimes."

_Here it is._

It was a more severe challenge than Harry had expected to face, and sooner. But he didn't let a muscle change in his face as he said, "Which ones?"

Umson frowned at him. He had bright red-gold hair and blue eyes that Harry might have trusted if he had met them under different circumstances. "What do you mean?"

"Which of my Slytherins are going to be charged with Death Eater crimes?" Harry repeated patiently. "I don't think it's all of them."

Auror Umson drew himself up and folded his arms. "Well, Professor Severus Snape, of course," he said. "I think you'll agree that his crimes committed during his time as Hogwarts Headmaster were simply reprehensible."

Harry smiled at him. "I'll thank you not to assume what I think before I tell you," he said, and Auror Umson looked as if he wanted to fall down the stairs. "Who else?"

Umson hesitated once more. Harry wanted to smirk, except that would have made him look more like a Slytherin than he cared to. _He's not sure who's Marked and who's not. Except that he knows all of them are Marked by me, now, and _mine.

The word flared in his mind like dragonsbreath, hot and killing. Harry paused and did his best to step back from that. He had to protect his vassals, said the bond that dangled and looped through the back of his mind, but he wouldn't do them any good if he was too angry to pay attention to what his opponents actually said.

"Well, Draco Malfoy, of course," Umson said at last. He was watching Harry's face as if waiting for cues. Harry didn't call attention to that. It would be more fun if Umson realized it on his own. "And Pansy Parkinson, since she wanted to throw you to the Dark Lord."

"Pansy Parkinson doesn't bear the Dark Mark," Harry said, calmly.

Umson rocked to a stop and stood blinking up at him. Then he said, "You would know this, how?"

Harry let his hand rest on the silver shield mark. Warmth flared from it, and for a moment, he thought he saw green lines joining the five green dots that represented his vassals. He didn't know what that meant, but he didn't allow himself to jump in the air the way he wanted to. He looked at Umson and said, "How do I know anything about any of my vassals?"

Umson fell back a small step from him. Harry bowed and took his hand off his shield mark, hoping that the little gesture didn't show how badly his heart was thumping. _I'm standing up to the Ministry. For a bunch of people I don't even _like.

But they would have to have trials if he didn't defend them, and that would just make everything messier. And the Ministry would probably do things to them that they didn't deserve, if they were ignorant enough to think that Parkinson was one of the Death Eaters.

"I don't understand," said McAnders from beyond Umson's shoulder. "Pansy Parkinson wanted to throw you to You-Know-Who."

"She did," Harry agreed easily, "but she was never Marked by him. That was one reason she was so afraid of him." He paused, but these Aurors had attacked _him_ before they asked anything and accused him of not listening when they hadn't asked a single question. He thought it was time to push. "As you would have known if you thought about it. Voldemort would have _rewarded _a Death Eater who wanted to deliver me up to him, and she would have been smarter to keep quiet about it instead of suggesting it as a last resort. Then she could have tried later and probably succeeded."

All three of them flinched at Voldemort's name, which Harry had to admit was satisfying. Then Umson said, mounting another step, "But when we find those who have the Dark Mark, we will take them into custody."

"Even knowing I'm their Lord?" Harry felt a sharp wave of something like nausea in his stomach as he said that, but he'd said it, aloud, in public, for the first time. It was violent enough to be nausea, anyway, but hard to characterize. "You know that will involve me having to come and testify for them, and talk about their accommodations. Why are you arresting anyone with the Dark Mark, anyway?"

Umson glared at him. "Why do you _think_?"

"I _think _that you should be a bit more polite to my Lord."

Harry had felt Malfoy come up from the dungeons, the vibrant, poison-green dot that represented him drawing closer and closer, but he had thought he would lurk in the shadows to see what happened, not speak aloud. The Aurors turned around with jaws dangling as Malfoy walked into the center of the entrance hall. He eyed them all distantly, until his gaze fell on Harry.

Then he bowed, and held up his right arm, where the silver shield gleamed. He was smart enough to keep his left arm wrapped in his sleeve, Harry saw. "My Lord. What are your commands?"

_Er, right, _Harry thought, mind gone blank for a moment. But he shook himself and moved down the steps. For a second, he feared the Aurors would stand in his way, but they parted at a sharp word from Umson. He seemed to know the consequences of obstructing a Lord on the way to his vassal.

Malfoy dropped to one knee as Harry came nearer. The sight made Harry's shield mark fill his arm with gentle heat as part of him accepted the submission.

But the rest of him didn't, and he cleared his throat and said, "First, that you get back on your feet. You don't have to-you shouldn't have to do that."

Malfoy took a second to rise, though, and stood with his head bowed when he did. "But what if I want to?" he whispered. "What if I think acknowledging my Lord is the right thing to do?" He darted Harry a glance under lowered lashes.

_Fuck, he's going to make his obedience as bloody difficult as his rebellion would be, isn't he? _Harry wanted to close his eyes and walk back to bed.

But that would make things difficult in a different way, so instead, he sighed, nodded, and said, "If you think this is the right thing to do, I don't really mind." Malfoy's smile was really a smirk. Harry decided to ignore it. "But second, did any of these Aurors question you this morning?"

"No, my Lord." Harry was going to want to cut Malfoy's head off if the idiot kept calling him that, he thought, but he knew from all the books Hermione had brought him that it was the proper form of address. So he stood there biting his lip while Malfoy continued. "I heard them talking. They thought to simply arrest me and Professor Severus Snape and have done with it, but then they remembered about the Lordship and your status as Savior. That could make things awkward. Then they decided to speak with you."

Harry stared at him. But there was no sign that Malfoy was lying, and Harry was sure he would _know_, the same way he had known that Zabini was on his way to the Forbidden Forest.

He turned around to Umson. The tall Auror stood there with his arms folded and his face motionless, but Harry could see the way his hand clenched on his wand, which lay along his left arm right now.

"Do you have _no _sense?" Harry asked in disbelief. "Everyone keeps telling me how important this Lordship bond is, even though I've never heard of it before, and I need to be careful and act like an adult and make sure I do my best. But you _are _adults, and people with a lot more experience than me. Shouldn't you know about Lordship bonds? Shouldn't you know that you can't just haul my vassals away to prison?"

Umson turned red. McAnders leaned over his shoulder and said, "It's even more important that Death Eaters are arrested."

"Who decides that?" Harry demanded. He could feel his face flushing up to his ears now, and he knew he probably looked stupid, with his cheeks all red and his hair practically standing on end. But not all of this was the bond. People kept putting him in important positions and then ignoring what they told him was the consequence of those positions. It was the same thing that made them all condemn him as Dark even though he was supposedly also the greatest enemy of the Dark that ever lived. Well, it was inconsistent and hypocritical and Harry was _tired _of it. "Why did you decide it was more important? Hell, do you even have all the people who served Voldemort out of your Ministry? There were a lot there who were taken over, but others who went along willingly. Umbridge's name comes to mind."

"The Undersecretary to the Minister does not have a Dark Mark on her arm," said McAnders.

"No, she only ran the committee that questioned Muggleborns about whether they'd stolen pure-bloods' wands," Harry snapped. "I'm sure that she's as innocent as I am."

The Aurors paused again. Harry wondered what the hell they'd been expecting. Someone who was meek and compliant? Hearing about the way he jumped in front of Voldemort's curse and the Lordship bond immediately grabbed him should cure them of that. Or maybe they had just thought they would overwhelm him and he would give in because he wasn't sure of the right thing to do.

Luckily, both the part of himself that was really _him_ and the bond were agreed on this. The right thing to do was insist on formal arrests if they were going to make them, and of people who had the Dark Mark, not smuggling people away in the night.

"We should check that young Mr. Malfoy does not have a Mark on his left arm, at least," said McAnders.

"Then you should _ask _to check," Harry said. "The way you would with anyone else. You should give him the same courtesy you're giving other people. And you need to ask both me and him."

He turned to Malfoy. Malfoy glanced at him briefly, and then returned his eyes to the floor. He did that gracefully, Harry had to admit. That was another thing that made him want to sigh. Malfoy knew so much more about this than he did, and if he adopted a deferential posture all the way through, then Harry would sort of have to let him get away with that.

"What do you think?" Harry asked. "Do you want them to check your left arm?"

* * *

Draco wanted to whimper and run away, that was what _he _wanted to do.

But he reminded himself, with a shiver that seemed to run down his spine, that the Dark Lord was gone, and no one could force him, again, to yield to him. There would be other terrifying things in the future, but they couldn't carry the same level of terror. There was simply no way.

And he was in public now, not in private in his house or in his bed in Slytherin, where he might get away with acting like a coward. He swallowed and looked up, and said, "I don't want them to check. But I will let them if you order me to, my Lord."

Potter's hair was going to come out of his scalp if he kept tugging on it like that.

He glanced back and forth between Draco and the Aurors, and then swore a little, and said, "Let them check."

Draco kept his face still as he extended his left arm. He wondered why it mattered to him so much. Everyone involved already knew what they wound find. But it had mattered that he make Potter say that.

_That's probably the bond making me do it._

Draco would have shrugged if he was in private with his parents, or even with Potter—a somewhat startling realization. He had to live with the bond, and if he spent the rest of his life trying to pick apart what was "really" himself and what was the subtle influence of the bond, he thought he would go mad. He preferred to see what advantages he could get out of this and acquire those advantages as soon as possible.

The tall Auror, Umson, strode forwards and pushed back the sleeve on his left arm. In doing so, he evidently decided that Draco's arm wasn't in a good enough position for him, and shoved it around rather rudely.

Draco winced.

Potter had his wand out in what seemed no time at all, pointing directly at Umson, and his friends had backed him up. As Draco studied them and tried not to seem like he was gaping, Potter said, in a deep, low voice that Draco had never heard him use, "I granted you permission to check his arm. I did not grant you permission to hurt him."

"He's hurt others," said the tallest Auror of all, whose name Draco didn't remember. "He deserves a slight return on that investment, don't you think?"

Potter smiled nastily at the tall man and turned his wand fully on him. "And what if I were to demand a return on my investment in saving people? How many Muggleborn victims of the Ministry did you save during the last year, Auror Refortson? I'm waiting for an answer," he added, as Refortson paused.

_I'll remember your name, _Draco told him, with silent eyes and a sweet smile. _I'm sure that I'll be able to do something about you sooner or later. My Lord might not block me. He might even help me._

"I have done what I could to help rescue people," said Refortson. "But you know what the Ministry has been in the past year, and how difficult that was."

"In the meantime," said Umson, his eyes fixed on Draco's left arm where the Dark Mark blazed, "we can arrest young Mr. Malfoy. With your _permission, _Lord Potter?" His tone made a mockery of the title.

Draco stiffened in Umson's hold, but he sincerely doubted that Umson had noticed. He noticedd, though, when Potter said, "Where are you going to hold him?"

"In Azkaban, of course," said Umson. "All those with the Dark Mark deserve at least that measure of confinement."

Potter sighed. "So you're going back to the way the Ministry always worked, with generalizations, and a refusal to consider individual cases. Everyone is guilty, and everyone is guilty of the same crimes. That's what _matters, _isn't it? It would be too much effort for you to investigate and decide what Mr. Malfoy has done, and what Professor Snape has done, and what Lucius Malfoy has done."

Umson straightened, probably realizing how bad Draco's Lord was making him look. "Of course I would be delighted with specifics," he said. "But it would take time to round those up and—"

"So you prefer to arrest someone without knowing exactly what they did?" Potter asked in interest. Draco thought he could hear Weasley snicker behind him.

"That's not what I _meant_," Umson said, throwing a sharp glance over his shoulder at the other two Aurors when they would have said something. "I meant that a Dark Mark is an admission of guilt in the first place, and we can decide what charges to press once we have them safely in custody."

"Then you must take us as well."

Draco glanced over his shoulder; he couldn't turn further because Umson was holding his arm at such an awkward angle. He swallowed when he saw his parents walking up the staircase from the dungeons, although how they'd got there, Draco didn't know. His father had his arm around Narcissa's waist, and both of them were pale. But Lucius held out his left arm with a faint smile.

"You can arrest us right away, since we have no Lord to protect us and insist that we be treated with dignity," Lucius added. "And perhaps we may spend months in the cells before you find the proper charges, but that's the way that the Ministry works in war, isn't it? The most efficient method."

Draco turned around as he felt emotions eddy and churn in the back of his head. He didn't think they were his own, no matter how much his heart shriveled at the thought that his parents might go to prison. They had come down here of their own free will, which meant that Lucius, at least, must have decided the risk was worth taking.

Granger was whispering fiercely to Potter. Potter raised his eyebrows at her and pointed to the shield mark on his arm. Granger nodded. Potter shrugged and turned around, but not before Draco saw the grin he was working to hide.

"What about releasing them on my word?" Potter asked. "Or at least holding them in cells in the Ministry, rather than Azkaban."

Umson shut his eyes. Draco felt his lungs rattle with a long breath, since the Auror was still hanging onto his arm. "What do you mean, sir?" Umson asked, his voice low and exquisitely polite.

"It's just, I'm new at this Lordship business, and my friend Hermione reminded me of something," Potter said. A new Sickle wouldn't have outsparkled the innocence in his voice. "She told me that Lords can pledge their word for someone else. Mostly, those are vassals, because he has the power to punish them if they disobey, but they can extend their protection to vassals' families. So Mr. Malfoy and his family could stay free, as long as I pledged my word to stand surety for them. If they fled the country or cursed someone else, then I would be responsible for that. I could even go to prison myself. What do you think? Is it a good solution?"

_Not for Umson, _Draco thought, and had to work to keep his glee off his face. Because if that actually happened, Umson would have to take a chance on arresting the Boy-Who-Lived.

"We would have to discuss exactly what you are promising," Umson said, after clearing his throat uncomfortably for a few seconds and seeming to wait for Potter to decide that he was joking, "and for whom. And why you are so desperate to keep some of your vassals out of Azkaban."

Potter abruptly stood straighter, and although he'd lowered his wand while he spoke to Granger, he raised it again now. "Because my godfather endured twelve years in Azkaban, and I saw what it did to him," he hissed. "And he didn't get a trial. He got condemned by public opinion. I'm _not _going to have the same thing happen to people I'm responsible for protecting. Understand?"

Umson nodded, because he couldn't do much else, really. Other people were starting to wander into the entrance hall, and pausing to stare at the spectacle. Draco couldn't blame them. Umson probably wouldn't have started this if he'd thought Potter would object. Obviously, he had expected Potter to jump at the chance to be rid of those awful Slytherins he was bonded to.

"Fine," Umson said, bowing from the waist as though to a powerful official in the Ministry. Potter accepted it without comment, maybe because he was watching Draco and Lucius. Umson's mouth tightened, and Draco made a mental note to keep an eye on him. He seemed like the kind of person who wouldn't take being embarrassed by the Boy-Who-Lived lightly, even if it was mostly his own fault. "We cannot let them go, but we will take them to holding cells in the Ministry instead of Azkaban, provided that _you _understand you will be liable to go to Azkaban if any of them escape."

Granger grabbed Potter's arm at that, and Weasley leaned near him, muttering something about "Dementors." Draco curled his lip. Yes, _he _remembered how susceptible Potter had been to Dementors in their third year, but it wasn't the kind of weakness that you wanted to announce to all and sundry.

"Good," Potter said. "I'll stand surety for Draco Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy, Professor Severus Snape, and Gregory Goyle."

"Any other Death Eaters you want to rescue?" muttered Refortson, shaking his head. Disgust on him was probably more intimidating than it would be from the others, since he was so tall, but Potter just looked at him without much interest and shook his head.

"I think the rest of them wouldn't be interested in pledging to me even if I was interested in accepting them," Potter said, and left Refortson there to look foolish because of his foolish question, while he turned back to Draco. "What about you, Malfoy? Will you pledge to remain true to your word and go quietly to the holding cells?"

Draco bowed a little, and said, "I pledge my word."

"You have mine, as well," Lucius said from behind him.

"And mine," said Narcissa, and Draco heard the graceful rustling as his parents knelt.

"Good," Potter said, staring around in a distracted way. "Now I suppose I only need to find out what Professor Snape and Goyle think—"

"I will answer for Mr. Goyle, who is too traumatized to do it himself," said Professor Snape. Draco started. He had assumed that he could feel people in the bond the way he was starting to feel Potter, but Snape had once again sneaked up behind him. He was leading Greg by the arm, Draco saw. "We pledge our words."

He bowed his head, but not before Draco saw him flash a quick and probably ironic glance at Potter. Potter looked back with a faint downturn of his mouth, but nothing more.

Then he stepped up to the Draco and whispered, "Stay strong. I won't let them hold you indefinitely."

That should have been far less comfort than it was, but Draco left with a light heart, even turning his head to watch Potter and his friends head in the direction of the Great Hall. The shield mark on his arm pulsed with warmth again.

_No, having someone who can protect me even after I leave home isn't all that bad._


	9. Fears and Apologies

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—Fears and Apologies_

The Great Hall was still filled with pallets and people sitting at benches with their heads bowed, but there were fewer people than there had been. Harry relaxed a little. Healers had taken the most badly-wounded to St. Mungo's, and the house-elves were feeding the ones who remained and needed food. That was one thing he didn't have to worry about.

_Why should I have to worry about it at all? _

Harry shook his head a little. The Lordship was affecting his brain, he decided. He saw a problem and he started wondering about how to fix it. He had to do that with _some _people, but only some. He would have to stop exaggerating and just concentrate on his Slytherins.

"Harry!"

That was Mr. Weasley, calling from a table near the center of the Hall. Harry hurried over, glad that they could sit with people they knew.

The crowds on the floor made way for them, of course, murmuring and staring. Harry squared his shoulders. If Hermione was right, he would get stared at more than ever, because he would have to go stand in public and talk about what his Slytherins had and hadn't done during their trials. If he started acting like a kid now, then people would just think he was being cowardly.

And then they might think they could get away with controlling him, or hurting people he was responsible for. Harry was determined that wasn't going to happen, with a determination strong and cold enough that he hoped it would freeze the Aurors if he unleashed it on them.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were the only ones sitting at the table. Harry knew without asking that George would have gone home, because being at Hogwarts was too stressful for him. Harry winced a little as he sat down. He wanted to do something for George, too, but he didn't know what he could do.

"Have some food, you must be starving," Mrs. Weasley said firmly, and pushed a heaping plate at him. Harry picked up a few grapes and looked up to say thank you.

He caught Ginny's eye, and Ginny shuddered and looked away. Harry swallowed the grape and ended up not saying anything. He wondered what the hell was going on with Ginny. She hadn't acted like that after he got the Lordship bond, only after he brought Zabini back from the Forbidden Forest.

Speaking of Zabini, Harry would have to find him and Parkinson and talk about the rest of them being taken to the Ministry. He suppressed a sigh and picked out another grape. When was he supposed to have the time and privacy to _talk _to all these people?

"Ginny."

Harry looked up. It was Ron who had said that, and he was frowning at Ginny.

When Harry looked, Ginny stood with one hand on the back of her chair, frozen and guilty. Harry winced. She had turned from him and tried to creep away, he thought, but Ron had noticed and kept her there.

"I just—I really have to use the loo," Ginny said, ducking her head until her red hair fell down around her face. Harry watched her and remembered the way she had kissed him on his birthday, the way she had tried to sneak into Snape's office and steal the Sword of Gryffindor. All the courage and the light and the life seemed to have drained out of her.

_Did I do that? _But Harry still didn't know why or how.

"Then go, for heaven's sake," said Mrs. Weasley briskly, and turned around to say something to Hermione. Harry craned his neck to watch over her shoulder as Ginny slipped out of the Great Hall.

_Maybe you have to take the time to talk to people where you find it._

"I kind of have to go to the bathroom, too," Harry said, pushing his plate away and standing up. "Will you—will you excuse me?"

Mrs. Weasley smiled at him at once and waved her hand when Mr. Weasley opened his mouth. "Of course, Harry," she said. "Some people have important things to do." She sat down and started talking to Mr. Weasley about something to do with the Burrow, maybe the funeral they were going to have there. Harry didn't stay to listen. He made his way along the wall of the Great Hall, where there were fewer people to stare at him, and into the quiet outside.

There, he had to hesitate, because he didn't really know where Ginny would have gone, but in the end, he made for the nearest bathroom. He would just check all of them until he found her. He thought it was important that he knew what had happened with her.

* * *

Pansy climbed the stairs from the dungeons cautiously. She had woken up and found the Slytherin common room deserted an hour earlier, and after knocking and calling on all the bedroom doors, she had to admit that it seemed everyone really was gone. That was silly, of course. Why wouldn't Greg have stayed there? And Professor Snape wasn't in his office.

There was a slight pulse of warmth in her shield mark that reminded her of where she could go, but she refused to take her questions to Potter unless she had to. In the end, after sitting by the fire in the common room and considering for twenty minutes, she had resigned herself to going to the Great Hall. People would stare at her and whisper, but she could get food there and perhaps learn what was going on.

When she was just about to take the final step off the dungeon stairs, she felt the warmth pulse along her arm to the elbow. She immediately hid in the shadows, and Potter hurried by a second later. His face was grim, and he looked back and forth as though someone was chasing him. While Pansy craned her neck to figure out what it was, Potter went up the staircase to the first floor, stomping all the while.

_Maybe I can find out where Draco and the others are by following him._

It was worth a try, and less humiliating than going to Potter to beg the truth. Pansy set her mouth and climbed after him.

It became easier when Potter left the stairs and it became obvious he was aiming for a bathroom. He no longer looked around, and the only thing that made Pansy's eyebrows rise was that he opened the door of a _girl's _bathroom. In seconds, he was inside, and he made a noise of relief.

Pansy hesitated one more time. But she wanted to survive, didn't she? And this could be prime information. She cast a spell that held the door open a little, as though it naturally hadn't shut all the way. It was an effective means of disrupting anti-eavesdropping spells and wards, since they only worked on a sealed surface. She stood so that the torches wouldn't cast her shadow across the floor outside, and listened.

"There you are, Ginny." Potter's voice had dropped down to a velvet thing, soft as a butterfly's alighting. Pansy rolled her eyes. She remembered Ginny Weasley as tough and resilient enough to defy Professor Snape. Did Potter think he would get anywhere with softness?

But Weasley didn't reply with harsh words or the ringing sound of a slap Pansy had almost expected to hear. Instead, she sniffled. Pansy blinked and wished she dared take a step closer to see inside. As it was, she settled for casting a Sense-Enhancing Charm on her ears and hoping.

"What is it?" A soft thump that was probably Potter sitting down on the floor or maybe a bench; Pansy couldn't remember offhand if this bathroom had one.

Still no response. Pansy folded her arms. _Come on, Weasley, the git loves you. It shouldn't be that hard. Talk to him about your dead brother or whatever it is._

"I don't know how to say it and sound nice," Weasley whispered.

Pansy blinked. The girl who went around casting Bat-Bogey Hexes on people was worried about being nice? But then again, it was probably different when she was with a fellow Gryffindor.

"Then say it and don't worry about that." Potter's voice was low. Pansy rubbed her shield mark, which was cold for the first time. She had no idea what it meant, and more interest in listening to the conversation anyway. "Just tell me. I'm worried about you, Ginny. I think I'm making you afraid, and I think—"

"You _are _making me afraid."

Pansy winced a little. _There's not being nice and there's being blunt enough to scrape someone's heart out, Weasley._

Potter seemed to agree with Pansy, if the little catch of breath she heard him give was any indication. Then he said, so gently that Pansy wouldn't have been able to hear his words without the charm she'd cast on her ears, "Why? You know that you aren't part of the bond, so I can't ever do to you what I did to Zabini."

_And what Zabini did was stupid, and should have been punished with death anyway, _Pansy thought. She wasn't looking forward to having to share a bond with someone so stupid. Blaise seemed to have lost his head over the war, and now he wanted to dash around like a Gryffindor looking for all avenues of escape, instead of waiting and searching for the advantage.

"But you had power over him, and no one could stop you," Weasley whispered. "The same way that _Tom _had power over me."

Pansy had no idea who Tom was, but from the way Potter grunted, that blow had gone even lower than the other one. Pansy half-closed her eyes as the cold in her shield mark increased. She hoped that meant she wouldn't have to go in and comfort Potter or anything like that. She could accept that she would have to deal with Potter in her political future from now on; it was a bit much to accept dealing with him in her personal one as well.

"I would never do that," Potter was whispering in a soft, fervent voice by the time that Pansy paid attention to him again. "I would never, I would never…"

"It has less to do with whether or not you would, and more to do with me," Weasley interrupted. She sounded calm again. _At least the chit has intelligence enough to realize that, _Pansy thought. "It's just that someone having absolute power over someone else reminds me of Tom and what he made me do with the diary."

_Right, there was a rumor about Weasley and a diary in second year. _But Pansy had never thought she'd got the whole story, and she'd never been interested enough to try and find out. It seemed she would have to, now, if only so the cold in her mark would fade away and she could sleep at night without feeling like her arm was floating in ice water.

"I'm so sorry," Potter said. Pansy still didn't dare lean close enough to see, but she imagined him taking up Weasley's hand and kissing it, and Weasley taking it back. A few seconds later, she was indeed walking towards the bathroom door. Pansy hastily cast a Disillusionment Charm on herself and backed up.

"So am I," Weasley whispered. "It was so unexpected, and it's not something I want to think about, and—it's not something you can help. I know you didn't _ask _for this. But I don't think I ever really recovered from what Tom did to me. We talked about that once before, you remember?"

"I remember," Potter said, in a voice so filled with misery that Pansy rolled her eyes.

"And so I think it's best if we part," Weasley said. This time, she was the one who made Pansy roll her eyes. _She sounds like a bad romance novel. _"Maybe if you get rid of the Lordship bond, we can date again. But not now. I'm so sorry, Harry."

"If I—if I tried to get rid of the Lordship bond, and it worked, would you come back and date me again?"

Potter's voice rang with a wistfulness that made Pansy press one hand against the wall and frown at nothing. Why was _he _so heartbroken? Did he think that he would never find anyone again who wanted to date him, even with his power and his fame and his ability to command others? There were plenty of people who would find him attractive.

_But maybe he thinks that he only ever gets one true love or something. _Pansy knew there were people that ridiculous, although she had been lucky enough to grow up without many of them around.

There was a soft sob, and Weasley said, "Maybe. But I can't wait forever, Harry."

"I understand," Potter said, in a hollow voice. "And someone who can cause pain from a distance isn't what you need."

Then Weasley really did start through the door, and Pansy flattened herself back against the wall. Weasley didn't have eyes for anything but the floor, though. She walked her way with her head bowed and her red hair bouncing around her, shoulders slouched to make a picture of misery.

Pansy wanted, very badly, to sneer at her. _You'll find someone soon enough. I remember. You were the sort of person who never thought that you were worth anything unless someone looked at you like you were the center of their universe._

"_Parkinson_?"

Pansy started and looked up. Potter stood in front of her, his eyes piercing through the Disillusionment Charm and his hand resting on his right arm. Even as Pansy took a deep breath and prepared to announce herself, Potter flicked his wand and snarled, "_Finite_."

The Disillusionment Charm ended. Pansy stood up straight. She remembered her father saying there was no shame in eavesdropping.

Unfortunately, the next sentence he tended to say came along in her memory and made her flinch. _No, only shame in someone _catching _you eavesdropping._

"Potter," she began soothingly.

Potter shook his head furiously and pressed up against her. "Don't you have any _sense_?" he snarled into her face. "Aurors already came and took the Malfoys and Snape and Goyle away, and now you're sneaking around and doing things that someone else could try to arrest you for, too? And the mood the Aurors are in, they'd _listen_."

Pansy blinked. "I didn't know that happened to them. Why didn't you prevent it?"

Potter nearly pushed his glasses off his nose, he rubbed his face so hard. "Because they did commit crimes, and there has to be a trial. The Ministry was all for arresting anyone with a Dark Mark and hauling them off to Azkaban. I at least got them to commute that to staying in a holding cell in the Ministry. But now I have to go and testify for them, and Zabini might try to kill me again, and you…Just stay out of trouble, all right?" He turned around to walk further into the castle, the opposite direction from the Great Hall where Weasley had gone.

Pansy rubbed her arm, her chin, and then called out, "What if I can help keep _you_ out of trouble?"

Potter turned around, his eyes as bright and cool as water at midnight. "I promise you, I'm not about to suggest throwing someone to the Ministry."

Pansy flushed hot and blurted out the next words that came into her head without thinking. "No, but you just found out that your girlfriend thinks you're some kind of monster. You're going to go off and brood about it, aren't you?"

Potter drew up his head like a donkey about to kick, and Pansy braced herself for pain in her bond mark. But Potter let the breath go in a sigh instead of a shout, and locked his hands together behind his back. "So what if I am?"

"Because what she said isn't true," Pansy said. "Or not all true," she added hastily, because she could see the flash of Potter's eyes, and she could just imagine the way he would break out if he thought she was calling his precious girlfriend a liar. "She was right when she said it was personal. It doesn't make you someone who would torture her to death. It just means you remind her of someone who would." And Pansy did want to know more about the mysterious Tom, but no matter what Potter thought, she did have a well-developed sense of self-preservation, which meant she wasn't about to ask that question.

"And that's supposed to comfort me?" Potter stared at her.

Pansy hesitated. But why had she started speaking this way if she didn't care about comforting him at least a little?

"Don't let it go to your head," she said. "Maybe I'm doing it because I'm the only one around who's acting sanely and hasn't been hauled off to Azkaban."

"The Ministry, remember," Potter said, but he had relaxed enough to smile. "What do you want, anyway?"

"What?" Pansy blinked. "Well, more details about the Aurors and whether you think I'll be arrested would be nice."

"Stay out of sight for now," Potter said, touching the shield mark. Pansy thought he did it absent-mindedly, rather than to remind her it was there or threaten her. "There might be Aurors who would be willing to threaten you because of your supposed crimes during the war, or because you wanted to threaten me. And they might not check closely enough for a Dark Mark on your arm first."

Pansy stirred uncomfortably. "I did commit crimes during the war," she whispered. "I cast Unforgivables on people. I mean, it was when the Carrows told me to, but…" She let her voice trail off. Now that she wasn't living from moment to moment in a daze of terror, she was beginning to wonder what some of her victims would think of those words.

To her amazement, Potter smiled back at her. "I cast Unforgivables, too, and I didn't have anyone telling me to," he said. "We both deserve trials, or no one does. They aren't going to want to try me, but I'll insist on it, if they insist on trying everyone who did something wrong and stupid during the war because they were afraid. I don't even have _that _excuse."

"But…there were people who didn't do anything wrong and just fled and hid somewhere," Pansy found himself mumbling. She knew that she should accept Potter's words for what they were, the more than implied offer of protection, and back off and go elsewhere. She knew that she was being stupidly Gryffindor by being honest.

For some reason, though, it was hard to feel stupid when Potter was smiling at her that way. "Did anyone from Slytherin do that?" he asked.

Pansy frowned, trying to remember. "No," she admitted at last. "Not that I can remember, anyway. The Carrows watched us all the time, and most of us had parents who were urging us not to do anything that would get us noticed." She remembered the one firecall she had managed with her mother, the lines of tension in her face that Pansy had always envied because it was so pretty. Well, neither one of them probably looked pretty now.

"And I don't know if the people who hid and fought back would have trusted any Slytherins if you did try to flee to them," Potter said softly. "Yes, we both did something wrong, but I'm going to make sure that what we get are trials and _justice, _not just people running around shrieking that someone needs to be seized and condemned because that would make the public feel better." His face pulled so harshly tight that Pansy almost drew her wand. "I know one person who was just thrown into Azkaban because that made people feel better. It's _not _going to happen again."

And that, Pansy thought, was a vow strong enough to rock Hogwarts on its foundations. She took a deep breath and said, "Then I'm with you. Not just because of the bond and the constraints it places on me. I'm with you all the way."

Potter smiled at her, so bright and wide that Pansy almost couldn't believe it was directed at her. But she also couldn't believe that someone could have come up behind her and Potter wouldn't have reacted, so she did her best to smile back.

Potter held out his hand. Pansy blinked at it for a few seconds before she accepted it. Potter shook it firmly.

"I'm glad that we can be allies on this," he said. "Listen. I need to see about Zabini, and make sure that he isn't just left behind here."

"Behind?" Pansy repeated blankly.

"I'm going to go into the Great Hall and tell the Aurors that they should arrest me for use of Unforgivables during the war," Potter said calmly. "I hope you'll come with me."

Pansy clasped her arms around herself, shivering, and never mind the warmth in her shield mark that felt as if she was holding her arm in the middle of a bonfire that, for some reason, didn't burn her. _Most _of her felt as though a wave had just picked her up and spat her forwards, to land on some cold beach. And now someone wanted her to wade back into the ocean and do it again.

"That's not a good political move," she tried, but her voice was weak. And Potter was grinning at her with his eyes like jewels. Pansy had the feeling that not even his friends could reason with him well when he was in this mood. Well, probably. Sometimes Pansy thought that his friend Granger could do anything she wanted to do.

"At least we would all be together," Potter said cheerfully. "And they can't go ahead and do something to my vassals when I'm looking the other way. And Aurors like the ones who came to arrest the Malfoys and Snape and Goyle deserve all the humiliation they can get."

"But if you're locked up, then you can't do anything to influence the public," said Pansy.

Potter laughed aloud. "Ron and Hermione will do that for me."

Pansy knew Draco had envied Potter his friends before, but this was the first time _she _had felt anything like it. She wanted to put her hand over her belly and calm some of the pangs in it, but she had to make a decision, and Potter looked as though he would march right off to the hospital wing and speak to Blaise whether Pansy wanted him to or not.

Pansy at last took a deep breath and said, "I'll come with you. On one condition."

"What's that?" Potter studied her as though she had suddenly become interesting.

"You have to take advantage of everything that you can under the Lordship bond," Pansy said. "All the legal protection it gives you. All the ways that you can challenge someone and have it mean something. All the rights that it gives you over your vassals."

Potter frowned at her. "But that might mean that you have less freedom."

"I'll take a long-term loss of freedom with you over the long-term loss of being locked up forever, my Lord," Pansy snapped back.

When Potter's smile returned, Pansy thought he had tamed a little of the fire, and she partially relaxed. At least it didn't seem as though Potter was crazy enough to ignore her.

"Thanks," Potter said, although Pansy didn't know what she had done that was praiseworthy, and turned. "Come on, we have to convince Zabini to come with us."

"I'd like to see you try," Pansy said dryly as she followed him.

Potter grinned at her. "Didn't I mention? You can be bloody persuasive when you want to. I thought I'd let you try with him. And you should _see _your face."


	10. Harry, Lord of Chaos

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Ten—Harry, Lord of Chaos_

"Zabini."

Blaise jerked up and turned around to stare at Potter. He stood in the door of the hospital wing, his gaze so even and his arms folded so gently that Blaise was sure he had come to kill him. He reached for his wand, then dropped it as his right arm flared with an echo of the same pain that he had felt when he tried to kill Potter.

_It seems the bond won't even allow me to defend myself, _he thought, grimacing and sitting up. So he would meet his death with the dignity allowed him, whether or not he had a wand in his hand.

"The others have been arrested and taken to the Ministry," Potter said, his eyes deep with green shadows. Blaise wondered what his mother would say about them. He hadn't had the chance to talk to her yet, as much as he had wanted to. He wasn't _quite _a prisoner, but the hospital wing was full of the less gravely wounded, and someone would have noticed if he'd approached the Floo. "I couldn't prevent that, since they had Dark Marks and they'll have to stand trial, but I could prevent them from being taken to Azkaban. They're in Ministry cells now."

"Why are you telling me this?" Blaise had to ask. "Why would it matter to me? I don't have a Dark Mark, which means I won't be going to prison."

"And you never cast a curse during the war when a Death Eater told you to, or looked the other way from torture?" Potter asked, his eyebrows rising. "They'll come and get you sooner or later for trial."

Blaise rubbed his hands on his trousers. That was true, and he had wanted to leave before that happened. With the chaos after the battle, he had thought it would be easy.

And it _would _have been, he thought, tucking his right arm along his leg. If Potter hadn't interfered, and the stupid bond hadn't manifested.

"I think we should preempt them," Potter said, ignoring Blaise's stare. He wouldn't need to know that it was because Blaise had had no idea Potter knew words like "preempt." He could just think it was for the strangeness of his suggestion. "I think we should go down to the Great Hall and give ourselves to the Aurors, in front of an audience, so they can't sneak us away the way they tried to do to Snape and Malfoy."

Blaise knew his mouth fell open. "The _we _seems out of place," he said, because he could, and no fire punished him immediately after. "What did you ever do that needs forgiving by anyone but a Slytherin?"

Potter gave him a grim smile. "Used Unforgivables on people," he said. "Without an order, even. Because I was trying to survive, sure, but I wasn't casting them because I was in fear for my life." He shrugged. "One, I just used because Carrow spat at McGonagall and I just wanted to curse someone when I saw that."

Blaise rubbed his eyes. He saw Pansy slipping in behind Potter, but it was difficult to look away from the great idiot in front of him, who had just given information worth an empire into Blaise's hands.

If Blaise could ever prove it. If Potter wasn't going to march down and surrender himself to the Aurors anyway, the way he said he was.

"You have no idea," Blaise whispered.

"No idea what?" Potter was the one who cocked his head at him, but Pansy was the one who spoke.

"No idea what you are." Blaise's hands were shaking. He knew they had both noticed that. Too late to hide it, and too late to pretend that he was so weak they could order him around as they liked. "You have—you could get _away _with this. Or I would have thought that you would never use Unforgivables in the first place. What _are _you? What strange mixture of—I don't know what to call it?" He had been about to say "good and evil," but his mother's voice whispered in his head, reminding him that would sound childish, that sophisticated people believed in far denser and deeper concepts than good and evil.

"Gryffindor and Slytherin?" Pansy smiled a little. The smile had its own shadow, Blaise thought, lying on her face like a filmy grey scarf. "Well. That's one way to describe it. But our Lord wants to stay with us, and he can't do that if we're arrested and taken to the Ministry, or if half his vassals are there and half are in Hogwarts. So we're all going together."

Blaise turned around to face Pansy completely, because looking at Potter was too complicated right now. "Then he convinced you?"

"He did." Pansy leaned forwards, placing one hand on the clean white sheet of the bed and looking at Blaise so steadily that he flinched a little. It was the way his mother had looked at him when he did something stupid in the past—and he could admit, now, that challenging the bond had been stupid. He should have tried to cripple Potter, not kill him. "Look, Blaise. The bond is going to be part of our lives for the foreseeable future. If we're going to break it, it'll take a long time. We might as well work with the advantages it can give us."

"How is prison an advantage?" Blaise brushed a strand of dark hair out of his eyes, and Pansy echoed him. Her eyes were more brilliant than Blaise had ever seen them, though, the light glowing through the mask of weariness and unconcern she usually kept over them.

"I think it can be, if we're together," Pansy said. "You know that we were stronger when we stood together with our House than when we tried to act outside it."

Blaise sneered at her. "That may have applied to you, but not to me." His mother had a good position, in the center of a web of allies without being tied too deeply to them by blood or marriage, and she had raised him to be the same way, neutral, ready to turn around and place his hand in the hand of anyone else at a moment's notice. Therefore, it had been more people inside Slytherin than outside it who had troubled him and demanded on his choosing a side.

"Really?" Pansy leaned so near that Blaise could no longer focus on the color of her eyes. "And how many friends did you have outside Slytherin, Blaise? Would any of them shelter you now, if the accusations started flying and someone decided they would rather see you in prison than outside it?"

Blaise scowled at her, unable to speak, hating the feeling. But it _was _true that he had no Gryffindor friends, and they were likely to rule the day now. He had a few Ravenclaws he would associate with, but none of them would put themselves at risk for him. Besides, if everyone was tried who had cast illegal curses during the war, then they would probably have to deal with trials of their own.

He glanced at Potter, who was leaning against the doorway of the hospital wing and listening. Potter smiled at him. Blaise turned his head quickly away and back to Pansy.

"You think that doing something _this _mad is going to win you friends?" he asked. "Taking a risk that could imperil your life?"

"It'll get me closer to my Lord and my fellow vassals," Pansy said, twitching her head a little. "I told you, that's the group we have to worry about right now. That's the group that will sustain us as we struggle through this. The desires of people outside it aren't very important right now."

Blaise thought of his mother, and ran his fingers along his shield mark again. How would she react when she found out he was Lord-bound? Would she be irritated? Angry that he hadn't managed to avoid such a ridiculous fate?

_No, _Blaise realized, with a little sinking of his stomach. _If I had managed to kill Potter and survive the bond's punishment, then she would be proud of me, but I got caught. I have to deal with the consequences myself. She won't care. She'll expect me to find advantages where I can, and associate with who I have to._ It was one reason that his mother had never committed herself to open hatred of Muggleborns. She knew that Dumbledore's side might win the war, and she would have strange bedfellows.

_Shit._

Blaise sat up and turned to Potter. "Why did you come up with this plan?" he demanded. "I thought you didn't want to be a Lord any more than we wanted to be vassals."

"At the moment, the only Lords I've found who managed to weaken their bonds died of heart attacks a few days later," Potter said. "Maybe it's coincidence, but twice is one time too many for me. And I want to live. If it means living this way, well, it won't be the hardest thing I've ever done." He fell silent, his eyes on Blaise.

Blaise bowed his head. He couldn't believe that he was seriously considering this, when less than a day ago, he had been cursing Potter and expecting to get away with it. And there was the possibility that no one would bring charges against him, that the people he had cursed during the war would never care or wouldn't remember.

Then he cursed softly as he remembered how prominent he was now, how no one would be able to overlook him as a vassal of Lord Potter. It wasn't the notoriety he had wanted, not something he had _desired, _but that was the way it was.

Pansy was right. If something loomed across your path, you dealt with it the best you could, the way Blaise had dealt with his alternating rivalry and friendship with Draco. You didn't try to run away from it. He knew exactly what his mother would say to that. Or not say, given the turned back and lowered eyes he would get from her instead.

"Fine," he said, rising to his feet. "But I want you two to speak. No sense in embarrassing myself more than I already am."

Pansy's cheeks flushed a delicate rose as she smiled at him, but it was Potter's shining glance that made the gentle warmth start up in his shield mark. Of course it was. Blaise rubbed his arm and tried not to scowl.

* * *

Harry stopped outside the Great Hall and squared his shoulders. For a moment, he worried that Ginny might be in there and might have told someone what they talked about—

Then he shook his head. No. Ginny would do lots of things, but not that. And she had probably gone someplace to be by herself, or at least back to her family's table, which was near the far end of the Great Hall.

Harry stepped into the Great Hall and looked around for the scarlet robes of Aurors. It didn't take him long to find them. Two stood talking to the Weasleys, in fact, and several others circulated around the room, looking keenly into the faces of the students sitting there.

"I surrender," he said, loud enough to echo. Of course, a lot of that came from the silence that had fallen when people looked up and realized who was at the door.

Harry could feel Zabini behind him, the git's tension swirling and flowing up his shield mark, turning like a top. Harry had no idea what Parkinson was feeling; she seemed to be calmer, and that meant his shield mark was less likely to pick up on it. Already he was learning a few of the nuances of the Lordship bond, he thought. It was formed mainly for protection, at least on his side, and let him know most often about the feelings that meant his vassals might need some protection.

The Aurors by the Weasleys turned around and stared at him. Harry could see Ron and Hermione rising to their feet at the same time, identical expressions on their faces. Harry shook his head at them. He knew they would attack the Aurors for him if they thought it necessary, and he loved them for it, but he couldn't allow that to happen, not now. He faced the Great Hall again, and saw two Aurors he hadn't noticed before clearing a path to him.

"Surrender for what?" one of them called, a short, squat woman with dark hair and a piercing voice that reminded Harry unpleasantly of Umbridge's for a moment. But, when he peered closer, the voice was the only real resemblance. She looked as though she would smash a room full of meowing cat plates.

"I surrender because I used Unforgivables during the war, and that means you need to arrest me," Harry said, holding his hands out in front of him. He realized that he had no idea what an Auror would do other than Stun and bind someone. Hadn't they escorted Snape and the Malfoys and Goyle out by holding their arms? Maybe they had cords or cuffs like the Muggle police used, though. "Along with my vassals here, who had to torture people during the war because the Carrows would have killed them otherwise." He paused, and then added something he really wanted to know, but which was also a good idea to ask right now. "I suppose you _did _catch the Carrows, so that you can try them for what they did to students at the school during the war?"

The woman halted in front of him. Behind here were a few young-looking Aurors who whispered and blushed. Harry raised his brows at them, resisting the urge to flutter his eyelashes, and kept his wrists extended.

"Not all the Death Eaters have been caught yet," the squat woman told him, keeping her gaze directly on Harry. "And that includes the Carrows."

"What a shame," Harry said, clucking his tongue. "But I suppose it _is _easier to arrest people who come straight up to you and don't resist." He shook his head a little. "Aren't you going to use _Incarcerous _on my arms?"

"That would depend on what you've done," said the woman. The other Aurors behind her had joined their ranks now, as the ones who had been talking to various students and their parents shoved up together. Harry gave them an insincere smile and focused once more on the woman who had taken it upon herself to be their spokesperson. "We should have to determine your crimes."

Harry widened his eyes and touched his chest with one hand, leaving the other one stuck out so that they could wind chains around it if they wanted. "But that's not what we heard," he said. "We heard that certain people had to be arrested and taken to the Ministry at once, where they would be tried and have the accusations made later."

The woman swelled as though she was going to blow up. Harry half-wanted to see her do it. He thought it would be a glorious sight. "Who told you that?" she demanded in a low voice.

"An Auror named Umson," Harry said. "He thought it was his duty to arrest everyone with a Dark Mark, and he only came and asked me for permission when he remembered a few of them were my vassals and he _needed _my permission."

"If bearing the Dark Mark was enough," the woman said, "then half the people in the Ministry should have been arrested first. _Especially _those people who work in our Department."

Harry drew in a deep, satisfied breath. This was what he had hoped to find, some evidence of wrongdoing or at least hypocrisy on the Ministry's part. Umson wasn't concerned with justice, or even with getting people with the Dark Mark rounded up so they couldn't flee. He was interested in "them," the people who weren't part of the Ministry and who he didn't know personally.

Having just fought a war for the sake of "them," having been vilified and hated and adored and encouraged to fight by "them," Harry wasn't in the mood to let someone else get away with using "them" as an excuse.

"What's your name, madam?" he asked the squat woman.

"Jane Stone," she said. "You really intended to let us arrest you? Surely you knew no Auror would touch you?"

Harry shrugged and smiled. "I've already met Umson," he said. "I thought he might have a cousin here. Or a sibling."

Stone turned and studied the rest of the Aurors behind her. At once the ones who had been blushing and murmuring tried to turn pale and widen their eyes and pretend they had never done any such thing.

She turned back to him and said, "It is not ridiculous to want to keep track of those with Dark Marks, or to arrest those who used Unforgivables during the war."

Harry shook his head and extended his wrists. "Of course not. And I want to see justice during the war. But I think that _everything _has to be taken into account. So if everyone who used Unforgivables during the war is going to be arrested, then I should be, too. Or if you're going to admit that certain circumstances will excuse criminal behavior, then you have to admit evidence like Narcissa Malfoy saving my life in the Forbidden Forest. It can't matter for me and not matter for them."

Stone shifted a little. Harry was sure he knew what she would have liked to say: that he was the Boy-Who-Lived, and the rest of them were just Death Eaters.

Or Slytherins. Harry wondered how much the distinction would matter to some people, and if a Slytherin House identification was about to become the new Muggleborn heritage, the badge that indicated people you didn't want to stand with.

"You wanted someone to arrest you." Stone sounded as though she was reasoning it out.

"I thought you would soon come and arrest my vassals, and some of them have already been taken to the Ministry," Harry said. "This seemed to be the simplest course to make sure everyone was together."

Stone stared into his eyes, and moved her jaw like a squirrel crunching nuts. "What if I were to take you to the Ministry, along with your other two vassals?" Her eyes moved over Zabini and Parkinson. "And you could speak to the ones who've been arrested?"

Harry smiled pleasantly. "I would ask you what the price was."

"That you tell the truth each and every time," Stone said. "About everything. Those incidents of using the Unforgivables you mentioned, and how the Lordship bond really happened, and any services or heroic actions your vassals may have committed during the war." She made the heroic actions not sound much more innocent than the crimes.

Harry smiled again and bowed. "I would be delighted." He stuck out his hands again. "You don't want to clap me in ropes for the look of the thing?"

"I see no need," said Stone, and turned with a nod to the Aurors behind her. "Remain here, half of you, and continue to interview the witnesses to the battle. We need to know _exactly _who did what, and we need as many Pensieve memories as possible." She shot a quick look at Harry. "And we don't need any more perspectives on the moment when Lord Potter bonded his vassals. We have more than enough of those."

Harry had to smile at her. "Getting weary of them?"

"We have more than enough of them, and now we have a chance to interview the person who did it," Stone said, turning towards him. "No, we shan't clap you in ropes. Do you want to Apparate or Floo?"

Harry glanced over his shoulder at Parkinson and Zabini, who hadn't said a single word so far. Zabini's eyes were so wide, and Harry could feel the wavering and dancing of the green dot that represented him in his shield mark; he could bolt any second. Likewise, Parkinson stood there with a pale face and tight-clasped hands that told Harry she hadn't bargained for this, although her dot was still on his shield mark.

"I think we should Floo," he said, turning to Stone. "With your Aurors scattered through our line as necessary, of course, to make sure that we all arrive at roughly the same time."

Stone nodded. "You'll get in to see the Minister as soon as possible."

"I was unaware that anyone was Minister right now," Harry said, staring at her.

"_Temporary _Minister," Stone said, sounding as though correcting herself wasn't something she enjoyed doing. "For now, we have few people in the Ministry who we can prove didn't serve _him_. Kingsley Shacklebolt had proof, though, and he's been chosen temporary Minister until we can work out what to do."

Harry relaxed a little. Kingsley was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, at least, although that might make him even more hostile to Slytherins than anyone else. "What about you?" he asked. "You proved it, too, didn't you?"

Stone nodded. "When I was sixteen, I swore an Unbreakable Vow that I would never use Dark Arts, and had it witnessed by Aurors in the Atrium of the Ministry. That at least eliminates me from having used the Unforgivables and the other spells they _encouraged _during the war just past."

"But if you had used Dark Arts," Parkinson said, so suddenly that Harry started, "what would have happened to you?"

"I would have died," Stone said, looking at her, unblinking. "That is what the Vow does." She nodded to the Aurors who had remained behind her after they divided themselves. "Guide them _gently _up the stairs and to the fireplaces." Her voice was loud enough that everyone in the Great Hall could hear, but Harry hadn't noticed her casting the _Sonorus _Charm. He wondered if it was a spell that she had mastered nonverbally, or if she was just taking advantage of the Hall's acoustics.

"In the meantime," Hermione said, loud enough that Harry could also hear her, "we'll continue to research Lordship bonds and the legal obligations of them."

Harry nodded to her. Plenty of people would think that meant he was leaping into this blind and that he didn't know the first thing about what he had to do to protect his vassals, but Hermione had volunteered to send him information about advantages as well as disadvantages he could have.

Stone began to herd them in the direction of the hospital wing. Harry caught a glimpse of Zabini's dissatisfied expression, that he had just left the place and now he was having to go back. Harry would have caught his eye and offered him a smile if he thought it would work.

Instead, he found himself twisting his head to the side, his body braced and quivering. His shield mark was burning, but not the way it had done before, when he punished Zabini or felt him running out to the Forbidden Forest or sensed Snape's dark and self-destructive thoughts.

This was something _else, _he thought. A threat from outside and not inside the bond.

There was a wand uplifted above the heads of other people. Harry doubted he would have seen it if, in some way, he wasn't looking for it, the bond sharpening his senses to notice things that were out of place.

And the wand was aimed at a rafter. Harry's eyes traced out the path of the spell, how it would leap and deflect from the rafter, how it would come back down and slam into the head of the person directly below it…

Who happened to be Parkinson.

And Harry leaped before he thought, his wand tucked tight to his belly, his body tumbling through the air in the midst of a cocoon of defensive power, which he unleashed as he landed and turned to meet the assault.


	11. The Lord Defending His Vassals

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eleven—The Lord Defending His Vassals_

There was too much light, too much sound.

Pansy stumbled back with her hands over her ears, her eyes fixed on the spectacle in front of her. She knew Potter had leaped, but she didn't understand how or why. There was a cocoon of silver light around him now—Shield Charms, Pansy thought. But she had never seen so many of them cast all at once, and she _did _wonder why he had to cast more than one. It wasn't like enemies were coming from all sides.

Then something caught her eye. She saw a crack in the floor of the Great Hall, near Potter's foot. It was a smoking crack, and it definitely hadn't been there a moment ago. Pansy tried to trace the path, and her eyes fell on a burning rafter directly over her head. Someone else put out the flame with a jet of water. Pansy wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. She could see the way a curse might have bounced from that rafter and down towards her. If Potter hadn't got in the way first with his Shield Charms and his whirling curtain of energy, of course.

She felt a little ill.

Then Blaise was hauling at her arm. He wanted them to go towards the walls, Pansy saw with a glance. That would keep them safe beyond the first row of shouting people. It also might enable Potter to do what he had to do, defending them, without getting in his way.

But when Pansy tried to move, a bolt of warmth shot up her shield mark. It didn't feel like the almost _approving _warmth she'd got when she confronted Blaise in the hospital wing. It felt as though someone was shooting her full of burning pellets, instead.

She stood in the same place, and both shook her head at Blaise and shook his hand off her arm. Then she turned her head to find Potter, wondering what she could do that the bond wanted her there for.

Perhaps nothing but watching. It certainly _seemed, _as a close circle of blazing light surrounded Potter, that Pansy and Blaise would be able to do nothing to aid him.

But they could be here. They could prevent themselves from getting in worse danger, or slinking away and worrying Potter later. Pansy folded her arms and held her head high.

She wasn't that experienced in battle; she had trouble telling who Potter was dueling in the close crowd of people that surrounded him. It didn't matter. She could stand there and lend her eyes and the weight of her presence, and no one would be able to say later that Lord Potter's Slytherin vassals were cowards.

Her arm heated softly. Pansy blinked a little. Those thoughts were unlike her, were almost _Gryffindor, _and she recognized them as part of the bond.

But she had been upset sometimes in the past when people called her a coward for preferring the practical way out. And she wanted to make a good impression on other people. She might not value the same things they did, but she wanted to _look_ like she did.

Maybe making that good impression was worth taking a few risks, along the way. Maybe the bond spoke to part of her that had already existed.

Pansy lifted her chin, and watched.

* * *

Harry felt as though he was fighting in the midst of a great _clarity, _as though sharpness of senses and quickness of reaction and richness of thought was another of the bond's gifts to him.

Who knew, maybe it was? This was the first time he had fought against someone on behalf of his vassals, after all, as opposed to against one of his vassals.

He had blocked that first curse, and sought out the young man who'd sent it. He had sort of a familiar face, but he was too old to be a Hogwarts student.

On the other hand, Harry thought, he could be the family member of one. Maybe one of the students that Parkinson had tortured on the Carrows' orders.

Harry set up Shield Charms, a blur of Shield Charms, all around him and in all directions, so that no one could get through them and cast more curses at Parkinson and Zabini. He discovered that his teeth were clenched as he worked, his hand tight around his wand. His holly wand, back the way it should be. He'd been able to use the Elder Wand for that much, at least.

This was _stupid. _What did the people who wanted to hurl curses at the Slytherins think would happen? That it would be fine to answer violence with violence, that no one should ever have a trial, that everyone should just be condemned or put to death right away without asking what they'd done and what they deserved? If someone from Parkinson's family came and cursed them later, continuing the cycle of vengeance, they'd probably cry foul, but what made what they were doing any better?

That curse would have _killed _Parkinson. And that was totally all right with the person who'd cast it. Somehow, it was horrible for Parkinson to be guilty of torture, but all right for them to be guilty of murder.

There had to be _something. _Maybe the Lordship bond, maybe laws and justice if the Ministry would ever obey its own rules. Something to lean against, something that was bigger than just someone being angry and upset. The same way that Hogwarts's students hadn't been allowed to randomly curse each other in the corridors, and someone who tried to retaliate with a hex was in just as much trouble as the first person who'd cast one.

He thought that as he built up the Shield Charms, and the anger in him was burning and breathing hot and clear when the wizard who'd cast the curse in the first place stepped forwards and aimed his wand at Harry.

Harry glared at him from behind the Shield Charms, and waited. He didn't intend to reply with an offensive curse unless he absolutely had to. His job was to be a defender. The bond had come from a Shield Charm mingled with an obedience curse in the first place. Maybe other people were okay with randomly killing, but Harry wasn't.

He only had to look around the Great Hall to remember all the people he'd seen lying dead in it. He didn't want to see more.

"You should get out of the way," said the tall young wizard to him. Now that Harry looked closer, he thought the wizard had a family resemblance to Terry Boot. Harry didn't know if Boot had survived the Battle of Hogwarts or even been here, but he also didn't know if he'd been cursed by Parkinson sometime during the school year. "She wanted to kill you. I heard her."

"And now she doesn't," Harry said. He waited, his arms folded, his wand resting in his hand and buzzing with energy.

That simple response seemed to baffle the wizard. He frowned and looked back and forth between Parkinson and Harry as though the change in her mind had to be written on her face. "She still wants to," he finally said.

"How do _you_ know?" Harry asked, and lifted his right arm. "Better than the Lord sworn to shield and protect her, I suppose?"

The wizard scratched at his chin, and then said, "She cursed my younger brother. Held him under the Cruciatus for ten seconds."

Harry nodded. "Then that's one of the things she'll be tried for. But I recognized that curse you used. It would have burned her alive, and you aimed it so that it would bring the rafter down on top of her and kill her that way if she survived the first few seconds. What's your defense?"

"She cursed my younger brother," the wizard repeated.

"And she wanted to kill me," Harry said. "Now she doesn't. I'm guarding her, and the Aurors are guarding her, and they're going to make sure she goes to the Ministry and prepares for her trial. What does killing her accomplish?"

The man looked at him condescendingly. Harry still thought he resembled Terry Boot, but he was sure the Boot _he _knew had never had that pointed a nose, or nostrils that big. "She would be dead. She would be punished."

"Would you be willing to be arrested, then?" Harry asked in interest. He had his wand out, in case someone else moved, but so far, most people seemed to find entertainment in listening. And perhaps this man could still surprise him. He was older than the majority of the Hogwarts students. He wasn't an Auror. That meant he could be outside of the stupidity that sometimes infected those two groups.

"No," the wizard said quietly. "You shouldn't be, when it's revenge."

Harry gave him a huge smile and aimed his wand straight at the idiot through the small gaps he had left in the Shield Charms. "_Brilliant. _Then you don't mind if I curse you as revenge for cursing my vassal?"

The wizard immediately tried to melt away. Someone shoved him from behind, and then Terry Boot was up beside him, panting and glaring at Harry. "He's my brother Lewis," he said. "And maybe what he did was stupid, but you don't get to curse him for it. Sod off."

Harry nodded, and lowered a few of the Shield Charms. "I don't care, and I'm willing to let it go, as long as he doesn't try it again."

"Don't worry, I won't," said Lewis, and aimed his wand around Terry. And to give him credit, he didn't try and curse Parkinson again.

He cursed Harry instead.

* * *

Blaise wanted to go and hide somewhere. He didn't understand the way Pansy could just _stand _there and act like battle was a spectator sport. A sensible person walked away and _stayed _away from the wizards who had battle and torture training. Sometimes, Blaise hadn't been able to manage that during this last year, and he had hated that more than anything, being forced to participate, or torture, or watch, or squirm under the pain curses.

But now they could hide somewhere if they wanted, and Pansy stood there as though someone had tied lead weights to her feet. Blaise was reduced to craning his neck, while keeping his body twisted towards the entrance of the Great Hall so that he could run if this didn't work out.

He saw what happened, sort of, but not very well. He saw a flash of red light, he saw Potter fell, and he saw Pansy give a scream like an angry hawk and go diving straight in at the wizard who had done it. Blaise clutched his right arm, wondering if the Lordship bond would give the pain back to the vassal, or hurt someone who didn't want to jump suicidally in like Pansy did.

But neither happened. There was just Pansy, trying to fight back a pushing, shoving knot of wizards, many of them taller and older than she was, who Blaise didn't know were enemies. Maybe they were just trying to get her out of the way so they could get to Potter, who was writhing on the ground, and give him help.

Then one of them—maybe the first one, Blaise couldn't _see_—aimed his wand straight at Pansy, his blue robe swirling around his arm, and Blaise's nerve broke.

This was so _stupid. _None of this would have happened to them in the first place if Potter had just spirited them away to some secret property he owned or something. And he had to own Unplottable properties and mansions no one else had ever seen, right? He was the last descendant of what had once been a fabulously wealthy family. There had to be a house somewhere, with bright green gardens and silver water and _silence, _where Blaise could rest.

But no, instead everyone was getting involved, and Blaise would be stranded here or in jail _forever _if he didn't do something.

So he drew his wand and raised a shield between the wizard in the blue robes and Pansy. Then he cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself, and melted back towards the corner of the Great Hall.

Which was what everyone sensible should have done _in the first place._

* * *

Harry hurt.

The bones in his arms, which the curse had hit, blazed with pain. Drawing breath hurt, and so did having his hair on his scalp, and so did having _skin_. The pain wasn't from a curse he was familiar with, and he had no idea how to stop it. It raced everywhere, and made it utterly impossible to draw a breath.

But he had to draw a breath. He had to get up, because his vassals were in danger.

The sudden sweet shock of sensation from the shield mark on his right arm told him that. And it gave him something to cling to, a reality that cut through the reality of the pain and made something else exist.

Harry fought his way to one knee and touched his wand to his shield mark. He croaked out a Shield Charm, hoping the spell could flow through the mark somehow and protect Parkinson, who was dashing at the crowd in front of her without knowing where the enemy was.

Maybe it did. A Shield Charm flamed into being in front of her, and Parkinson stopped, as surprised as Harry was, so _she _hadn't cast it. Just knowing that someone was safe let Harry get his hands beneath him, and then his knees, and fight his way up to a half-standing position. Lewis Boot looked at him with a wide-open mouth. Apparently the curse should have knocked Harry out for the count.

Harry grinned back, savagely enough that the confident look finally left Lewis's face, and he seemed to sense the possibility that he might be wrong. He began to back towards the far side of the Great Hall, and Harry, who was getting more and more used to the pain, scrambled the rest of the way to his feet. He panted, but that was nothing compared to the weight of the wand in his hand and the decisions spinning in his mind.

He had to do what would keep his vassals out of trouble, and himself, too, because without him, they would be vulnerable.

And he didn't know if cursing Boot was the right course of action.

"_Finite Incantatem._"

Harry gasped aloud as the pain in his body ended, so suddenly he staggered. It was a female voice that had cast the spell, and he turned to the side, expecting Hermione or maybe Parkinson.

It was Jane Stone instead, the Auror he'd spoken to before. She looked like a boulder as she turned to face Lewis Boot. "I would have stopped this nonsense before," she said. "But I was out of the Great Hall, in faith that people were _following_."

She darted a glance at the Aurors who had been supposed to escort Harry, Parkinson, and Zabini, and they flinched as if the look was a thrown dagger. Stone stepped up to Harry's side and spent a moment supporting him. Harry nodded to her and resolved to remember to try _Finite _the next time he was hit with a curse he didn't know. He had automatically assumed that it couldn't have that simple a counter because it was so powerful, but he hadn't _tried _the Finite, either. He really should. It was stupid not to have.

"Did you curse Potter?" Stone asked Lewis Boot.

"I did," Terry tried to say, pushing himself forwards. He was only a little taller than Stone, but he looked pale and brave. Apparently it was an unwritten law of the Boot family that everyone had to sacrifice themselves for each other, Harry thought wearily.

"You don't have the magical strength," Stone said, curt as lightning. "It was you." That to Lewis.

"I don't deny that I did." Lewis's face was as deep a red as the curse he had cast at Harry, but he managed to draw himself up with what Harry thought was remarkable dignity under the situation. "If you care about it, Madam Stone, then I might suggest you should have intervened _before _now, when Mr. Potter and I were arguing."

"I was out of the room and couldn't see what was going on," Stone said. "Spectators at a fight make it so no one can see over them. It's the worst of being short." She turned and looked at Harry. "Did you curse him back?"

"No," Harry said. "I did stop the curse he cast that deflected off a rafter and would have killed one of my vassals." He gestured at the burn mark on the rafter over their heads, and Stone looked up and studied it.

"I don't think a situation like this should be discussed in the middle of the Great Hall," Lewis said. There was dampness where his hair clung to his brow. "We should go somewhere private and explore the ramifications."

"Suddenly you know words like that," Parkinson muttered behind Harry. She had come to stand at his shoulder. Harry nodded at her, keeping one eye on her so that she wouldn't move forwards and get involved with more than words. He had seen her spring to defend him during the fight, and that was appreciated, but not something he wanted right now.

Briefly, it occurred to him to feel for Zabini, but his green dot was right outside the Great Hall, and not moving. That would do for now.

Lewis flashed her a glance so full of hatred that Harry wondered at it. Terry, the one Parkinson had tortured, was right there, but he didn't look at Parkinson that way. Was he just too afraid to? Or did Lewis think he had more right to hate her, for some reason?

"I think a situation like this should be discussed in private, too," Stone said. Lewis's shoulders relaxed. "At the Ministry," Stone added, and turned to address the Aurors who had remained with her. "Make sure that Mr. Lewis Boot reaches the Ministry as part of our cavalcade. Keep him apart from the others."

"What did I _do_?" Lewis flung his hands up.

"Used two illegal curses," Stone said. "The fact that neither of them killed their target is irrelevant." She turned to Harry and utterly ignored Terry's protests and the way Lewis kept talking. "Do you need to go to a Healer?"

Harry blinked. "No. It lasted, what, two, three minutes? I've been under the Cruciatus longer than that."

He was just stating a fact, but the long, slow stare Stone gave him still made him feel like a child. A second later, she snorted and turned away. "Come, Mr. Potter. That escort you asked for to the Ministry is past overdue."

Harry fell into line again, with several Aurors in between him and Parkinson, and double that number between Parkinson and Lewis. As they came out into the entrance hall, Harry looked around, located Zabini under the shimmer of a Disillusionment Charm that he could see straight through, and jerked his head.

Zabini visibly quivered, but dropped the charm. Aurors moved in around him at once. They marched towards the upper floors with more dignity and more absurdity, both, than Harry had thought would happen when he first made his request to be arrested.

_At least we're all going to be together, _Harry thought, rubbing his arm as he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, on Stone, and not on Lewis, where he _wanted _to turn and level it. _At least there's that._

* * *

Severus glanced up when the door to his cell opened.

He had been separated from Goyle and Draco the minute they came to the Ministry, taken to the holding cells, which lay in a half-concealed portion of the Auror Department, a corridor that led away beyond the offices and cubicles. It was a plain room, made of stone, no windows, no bars in the door, utterly lit, utterly bare except for one plain bed and bucket. Severus had sat on the bed and composed himself, watching as the Aurors exited the room with his wand.

After that, there had been nothing to do but wait.

Severus was good at waiting. Albus had kept him doing that more than once. The Dark Lord was a past master at it. Potions required it. This past year as Headmaster of Hogwarts had been spent doing little more than waiting. Waiting until the moment he could help Potter. Waiting until the moment Potter had discovered his destiny and walked to his death. Waiting to see whether the Dark Lord would die and Severus could survive the war.

When the door opened again, he was deep in meditation, his hands folded beneath his knees, lost in memory of what he had read about Lordship bonds during his lifetime and the way they functioned, and whether any had ever been successfully removed. He could not recall it so. There were always people who claimed that they had a way, Potions masters who thought they could gain fame should they invent a potion that did that, but he could not recall one who _had _the fame.

"How _could _you?"

His visitor was Kingsley Shacklebolt. Severus sat up a little more. This man had been in the Order of the Phoenix, and that was both good and bad for Severus. Good because he might have a little loyalty to Severus and know, once he heard the story, that Severus had indeed killed Albus on orders. The old man could convince anyone to do anything. Shacklebolt knew that. He would believe the story of Unbreakable Vows.

The bad side came from the words that Shacklebolt had spoken and the way he stood glaring at Severus now. He had known Albus, all right, and honored and revered him in much the same way that an ordinary vassal in a Lordship bond would revere his Lord. The temptation to take revenge when that killer was right in front of him might be too much, Severus thought, watching the man's hand tighten on his wand.

"How could I what?" Severus asked, because as with so many other things he had been involved in in his life, he could do nothing until he understood the accusation.

With a smothered curse, Shacklebolt turned and locked the door. Then he paced over and stood staring down at Severus.

"The word coming from Hogwarts is that you tricked Harry Potter into a Lordship bond," he said. "Purely to spare your hide and the hides of some of your traitorous students."

_Right. Of course someone would take that path when they saw that Potter was not going to reject us openly. I should have anticipated it._

"I did not do that," Severus said, and shook his arms. The sleeves fell back down them as Shacklebolt tensed up absurdly, eyes flickering back and forth between Severus's face and his arms. Severus sighed. "Your people took my wand, and you should have begun to hear other rumors now, true ones, that I killed Albus on Albus's own orders."

"Why would you do that?" Shacklebolt carried on staring at him. "You had enough independence that you could have refused."

"An Unbreakable Vow," Severus said simply, and turned his arms over, revealing Dark Mark and shield mark. "Why would I have _Marked _myself like this, Shacklebolt, when I finally had the chance to be free? I did not expect to survive the fall of the Dark Lord. Why would I sacrifice any freedom I had for security?"

Shacklebolt hesitated, eyes still wide and wild. Severus waited, his Marks plainly in view. There was nothing he could do save speak more if Shacklebolt did not believe him. Words were one of Severus's weapons, but he had never been in a position where they were all he had to use. In Hogwarts, in the inner circle of Death Eaters, in Dumbledore's service, during the past year, he could have reached for his wand as well, or his Occlumency barriers, or at least his reputation.

Now, he waited.

Shacklebolt finally closed his eyes and muttered, "If this isn't true, Severus, then you're going to regret it."

The first name had already told Severus that he had won, at least partially. He kept the smirk off his face and his eyes on Shacklebolt's. "Tell me why."

"Because the Wizengamot is meeting right now," Shacklebolt said, lifting his head. "Seems there's some ancient law that establishing a Lordship bond without asking the vassals first is a form of slavery, and enslaving _wizards _has been outlawed for the past four centuries. If they decide that Harry, or whoever really initiated the bond, did that, prison's the least you can look for."

Severus stood. "And that is why you came to me, hoping I initiated the bond," he murmured, mind racing. "Because I am here and Potter is not."

Shacklebolt nodded curtly.

"Take me to them anyway," Severus said, and if this was part of the bond asking him to his Lord's Shield, he no longer cared, not when he could feel an excellent excuse for viciousness curling his lips. "I have some words to say."

_Only weapon or not, it may be a powerful one._


	12. Settled

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twelve—Settled_

"Is this comfortable enough for Your Majesty?"

_Stone isn't here, or they wouldn't have said that, _Harry thought, and had to grit his teeth. He was starting to grasp another way the bond worked. When his vassals were nearby, Harry could do anything he needed to for them; he could suppress his temper, and speak in a soft voice, and cast spells that were more powerful and quicker than anything he'd ever managed before, and come up with crazy plans that might benefit them. But right now Parkinson and Zabini were in other cells, and he had no idea which cells the Malfoys and Goyle and Snape were in, and his head was buzzing with tiredness. He wanted to tell these idiot junior Aurors to go the fuck away and leave him alone.

Hermione probably would have called what he was going through an "interesting experience." Harry thought it was just another way that the bond was fucking up his life. He supposed that eventually, he would be able to blend these two states of mind, or at least leap back and forth more easily, but right now, it was bloody annoying.

"You didn't answer my question." One of the Aurors stepped towards him. Harry looked closely at his robes, because something seemed off from the way Stone's robes had looked in the Great Hall. They weren't as dark a red. "Is this comfortable enough, _my Lord?_"

"You shouldn't call me that unless you're bonded to me," Harry said politely, not because he really felt polite, but because he knew it would piss them off.

_Trainee robes. I think they're wearing trainee robes. _

Harry wondered for a second why someone like Stone would be relying on trainees, and then sighed. Of course. She'd said that a bunch of Aurors had been compromised, so they were either Death Eaters or they had done the same thing as the Slytherin students under the Carrows and followed orders in the Ministry because they were terrified of what might happen to them otherwise. Right now, trainees were more trustworthy than full-blown Aurors.

"That's a sign that the bench beneath your lordly arse isn't comfortable enough, right?" The nearest trainee stepped towards him again. The one behind him winced and clutched at his arm, but that man shook him off and leaned in, until his nose was a few inches from Harry's face. "That's a sign we should do something to _change _it?"

"Eric, we'll get in trouble!" whispered the trainee behind him, checking down the corridor.

Harry considered the first trainee again. He was probably the right age to have left Hogwarts a few years ago, Harry decided, which might mean that this hostility towards Harry didn't _all _come out of him thinking that the Ministry shouldn't make concessions to the Boy-Who-Lived.

"You knew me when I was in school, right?" Harry asked. "And thought that I got too much attention and too much praise for being the Boy-Who-Lived? And now you think that you have to take me down a peg because I'll get a big head because of being a Lord." He sighed. "You would get along with Snape. Maybe you were one of his favorite students?"

The trainee wrapped his arms in towards his chest, but seemed a lot more shaken about Harry describing him that way than he had been about the other trainee whispering his name. "What?" he began.

"Come _on_, Eric." The other trainee hauled on Eric's arm again and gave Harry an agonized look. Harry just stared back. If the agonized look was meant to be an apology, then it didn't go far enough. The other trainee hadn't actually prevented Eric from saying the things he did.

"No." Eric drew his wand. "I was a Ravenclaw and in my fifth year when you were a firstie. You didn't know me well. You can't say _shit _about what I want and believe."

"Then why are you sitting here taunting me?" Harry grinned up at him. "What do you have against me?"

Eric opened and closed his mouth. Harry shook his head a little. Some people thought he was Dark, and some people thought he was insane, and Eric apparently thought he was stupid. That annoyed Harry more than the rest. At least people would flinch away from him if they were afraid of him, and he might be able to make them leave him alone. But someone who thought he was stupid could do nothing but gape when they found out that Harry wasn't.

"Listen," Harry said, leaning forwards and trying to make his voice as gentle and simple as possible. "I don't want to fight with anyone."

"Really? Then why protect Slytherins?" Eric snapped. He had dark hair, which didn't seem to stand on end naturally like Harry's, but it was rising from his head now with the force of his fury. Harry eyed it. Eric might be capable of strong magic, or at least bursts of it, the way Harry had been able to cast all that magic at his Aunt Marge when he was upset. It would be better to get Eric on his side, if he could.

_And would I think like that, if it wasn't for the bond? _

Harry sighed. He was already tired of thinking and then sifting through his thoughts for what was "really" him and what was "really" the Lordship bond. He thought that he wouldn't have time for it, anyway, in most situations. He would have to go with what would save him and the others, and if that meant accepting help from the Lordship bond, then that was what it meant.

"Because I'm bound to them, and that won't change," Harry said. He allowed a little hope to slip into his world. It was a million-to-one chance, but Harry's life had been saved by stranger chances. "Unless you know some way to weaken a Lordship bond that won't damage any of the people in the bond?"

Eric fell back a step. "Why would I have that kind of knowledge?" His eyes darted around the cell, as though he had suddenly realized that Harry might be under observation by wards. "Who told you I did?"

_Powerful, but paranoid. _Harry shrugged and slumped on the bench again. The other trainee had stopped trying to pull Eric away, and stood watching Harry curiously instead. He probably did that all the time, Harry thought. Watch, and stand around, and not "interfere," which meant in practice that he put up with all the stupid shit other people did. Harry wouldn't depend on him for anything. "Nobody. I just meant that you seem to think I have some _choice _about defending Slytherins when they're bound to me."

Eric gaped at him. "You mean you _wouldn't _if they weren't bound to you?"

Harry turned and tapped his head against the wall—gently. No one would benefit if he had a crack in his skull, except the people who wanted to see them all imprisoned or dead.

"Of course not," he snapped, turning back around. "I owe a few of them life-debts, and so I might have to testify at their trials or something. But the Lordship bond means that I'll be responsible for them, legally and morally and financially, for the rest of my life or the rest of theirs. You think that's _easy_? You think it's something I wanted, when I spent years being responsible for the fate of the wizarding world? Of course not!"

Eric blinked at him. Then he said, "But that means—I don't think it's right to try you for enslaving them, if you didn't mean to."

"What do you mean?" Harry snapped, leaping to attention. He had thought he would be tried for using Unforgivables during the war and a bunch of other bullshit charges they could come up with, not for enslaving his vassals.

_Although that is the kind of bullshit charge the Ministry would come up with, and not such a far stretch, _he had to admit a moment later. _Kislik would probably testify for the prosecution._

"We weren't supposed to _tell _anyone that, Eric!" the other trainee hissed, looking up and down the corridor outside Harry's cell. "You know that you only heard about it in the first place because your uncle's on the Wizengamot."

"Exactly." Eric stood there with his head thrown back, his neck tensed as though he was carrying a huge burden on his shoulders. He was trying to imitate Gilderoy Lockhart, Harry thought, or rather, the heroic stance that Lockhart had used in more than a few of his author photos. Harry would have snorted, but he was too busy watching Eric intently. "But the Wizengamot should have someone testify in front of them that Potter's just as much a victim of the bond as anyone else. If it's true," he added, suddenly squinting at Harry. "But it must be. I know you hated the Slytherins." He reached out and pulled Harry out of the cell abruptly by his arm, though after a minute Harry straightened up and walked rather than let himself be dragged. "Come on. The Wizengamot is sitting right now to debate the bond and whether it was enslavement, and whether that means that you should be tried as a Dark wizard. They weren't going to let you in, but you're here now, which means that your voice should be heard."

"We'll get in trouble!" wailed the other trainee, hovering behind Eric and moving so that he kept the precise number of steps away from him at all times. Despite that, he didn't run, Harry thought. Probably some follower of Eric's family, the way Crabbe and Goyle had been with Malfoy. "You can't just storm in there and demand they listen, Eric!"

"Shut up, Oswald," Eric said, and smirked in a superior fashion over his shoulder before turning back to Harry. Harry thought his words were for both Harry and Oswald, though. "That's why it's good to have an uncle on the Wizengamot."

And Eric set out through the corridors, striding fast and drawing Harry along in his wake. He had wanted to wait in the cells because he had thought he could do his vassals the most good by remaining there, but it sounded like the real battle was being fought right now in the Wizengamot's courtroom.

* * *

So far, Severus had walked into the courtroom, been seated, and had the looming faces in the gallery peer at him while a droning voice from the right asked him if he understood that his testimony would be recorded, that anyone on the Wizengamot could ask him questions, and that he might be imprisoned for wrong or false answers to those questions. The proceedings would have been more elaborate in some of the other courts, Severus knew, but the Wizengamot followed the opposite procedure; they would add more rules later.

It was an unfair system, and the one that Severus had watched Albus wrestle with and twist and use and manipulate, but never transform. He gave the expected acknowledgments, his voice low and flat. Then the wizard with the droning voice moved into sight, a small, grey-haired one recording Severus's answers on a parchment, and Severus knew the questioning was about to begin.

It started with Tricia Selwyn, a witch so old that she looked like she'd been pickled. "Is it true that you killed Albus Dumbledore and were commended by You-Know-Who for it?" she demanded.

"Forgive me," Severus said, touching his chest above his heart. "I was under the impression that this interrogation was about the Lordship bond that some of you believe me to have initiated, not about the murder of Albus Dumbledore."

Selwyn's eyes narrowed. By using the word "murder," he had deprived her of one weapon she could have wielded. "This is hardly an interrogation," she said, picking up on the other obvious word choice and walking straight into the secondary trap Severus had prepared for her.

Severus smiled at her. "No? Then what is it? I understood the Wizengamot was sitting in judgment on the Lordship bond initiated by the contact between Harry Potter's Shield Charm and the Dark Lord's obedience curse without the Lord or vassals of that bond in front of them. Should such a vassal and Shield walk into the courtroom, what could he see himself as but the questionee in an interrogation?"

"Questionee is not a word," Selwyn said, but she shut her mouth and firmed her jaw when the contemptuous glares began to come her way. Severus sat up and turned to face the rest of the Wizengamot. He had been in this position before, when he was being tried after the first war, but he'd had to respect the limits Albus set on what he said then, and pretend that he was pathetically grateful for the chance to get pardoned at all. Now, everything was already known, everything was already done.

And the Dark Lord was dead.

There was what felt like a soft explosion of light and air in his chest, spreading. Severus shut his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. He had not thought of that fact before now, lost in his bitterness at the bond and the fact that he was a slave again. But now…

Now, whatever else they might do to him, they could not give him to the Dark Lord. He would never rise again in the future. There was that. There would always be that, from now on.

"Who initiated the bond, if you didn't?" demanded the small grey-haired wizard who had recorded Severus's initial responses. He was leaning over the gallery railing and peering down at Severus as though he suspected he had spoken to foil Selwyn and for no other reason. "Reports coming from the school said you did."

"Who gave those reports?" Severus asked quietly.

The little man stabbed a finger at Severus. "_We _ask the questions here, and not you!"

Severus gave a shrug and crossed his legs. This witness chair had no chains, unlike the one he had testified in after the first war. Once again came that wonderful, floating feeling of there being nothing they could do to him. Nothing that would be as bad as the consequences back then, nothing ever again.

"I merely worried for the accuracies of the reports you received," Severus murmured, eyes on the small wizard. Searching his memory for the name felt like a long plunge into a dark ocean, but finally produced it. Xavier Fawley, that was it. "If the Wizengamot cannot rely on its servants to tell them the truth, then what is wizarding society coming to?"

Fawley's expression was so pinched that he looked as though someone had been squeezing his cheeks. "You will _answer _the question."

Severus smiled gently at him, viciously, seeing another way that he could play with them. "No one initiated the bond," he said.

"Then there is no Lord, and no vassals?" That was Adela Abbot, a gentle, golden-haired witch who always looked as though she was on the verge of flinching. Frankly, Severus had no idea why she had gone into politics. She seemed to dislike the majority of what she had to do as a member of the Wizengamot, and had probably only taken a seat in the first place because of her family's pure blood, rather than some kind of deeds in the Ministry propelling her to those heights.

"There is a Lord, and there are vassals," Severus said. He could feel the glares from several sides, but he kept his eyes on Abbot, who bit her lip thoughtfully.

"Then who initiated the bond?" she asked.

"No one," Severus said.

Pepper-Up Potion could only have made the steam coming out of their ears more visible. Selwyn crossed her arms and stuck out her chin like a battering ram to knock down the doors of Severus's resistance. "Someone must have, or a bond would not exist."

"I gave you the answer to this question already, honored Wizengamot," Severus said in a soft, bored monotone that his students knew to fear. "The bond happened because my Lord's Shield Charm collided in midair with my former Lord's obedience curse. It was accidental. No one can say that we chose to serve him. No one can say that he chose to bind us."

He received enough twitching fingers from that announcement that he wanted to smile, and would have if he hadn't had better political sense. Taking a wizard as vassal could indeed be seen as enslavement, though that was a recent legal development and one that the Wizengamot had come up with at least as much to diminish the political power of bound Lords as out of concern for unfairly taken vassals.

But if no one had actually initiated the bond or made the decision, then legally, no one was responsible for it. Severus supposed they could try the Dark Lord for using the obedience curse, which was Dark, but he also doubted they would find any vaults or properties to seize as compensation. And the Shield Charm was not a Dark spell, meaning that there was nothing they could try Potter with, either.

Of course, this was the Wizengamot, who had declared that they didn't need trials for some Death Eaters after the first war since "everyone" had seen them acting in the name of evil, but other Death Eaters, like Lucius Malfoy, needed trials because "one person less than everyone" had seen them casting Dark Arts. That Selwyn had used that phrase with a straight face still bewildered Severus.

"Who made the decision to keep the bond going?" Selwyn asked now.

"Can the honored Wizengamot member clarify the question?" Severus asked, staring up at the ceiling for a moment.

"_You _do not ask the questions!" Fawley was hopping up and down, aiming a finger at him. "We do!"

Severus glanced idly at him. These members were much less self-controlled than the Wizengamot he had had his trial in front of. He supposed that the length of time they had been in charge—they had grown fat and complacent—and their sudden release from the Dark Lord's rule was the difference now. They didn't see the need to hold their emotions back when they were talking to someone who couldn't kill them for displaying them.

"Very well," Severus said, and remained silent.

"Answer her question!" It was only not a howl, Severus thought, because no one else would use the word to describe the sound Fawley was making. The other Wizengamot members would agree that it had been a polite question, and the reporters knew better, by now.

"I do not understand her question," Severus said. "And I am not allowed to ask for clarification. I know that now."

Selwyn stood up and walked slowly to the gallery railing, bending down so that Severus could get a better look at her glittering black eyes and the iron rings on her fingers. Supposedly, she had won those rings in duels, either directly from her victims or by insisting that they melt down some heirloom and make the ring for her after she lost.

Severus did not fear her. He was not about to duel her physically.

"I will ask one more time," Selwyn said. "Who made the decision to keep the bond going instead of severing it immediately?"

Severus let his eyes widen. "There are ways to sever a bond," he whispered, because he could not ask a question. "I did not know."

"That is not an answer to what I asked." Selwyn's fingers were white against the dark iron of the rings.

"I did not know there were ways to sever a bond," Severus said, ducking his head. "Particularly an accidental bond whose circumstances of formation would be difficult to replicate. I did not know. Now I know. I will begin investigating the methods of doing so immediately."

The sound of metal grinding on metal as Selwyn worked her hands back and forth on the railing was annoying, but Severus merrily ignored that. He had frustrated her, and that was all he wanted to do for right now, drive her in circles until she exploded or something else changed. Perhaps they would decide to bring in more witnesses, but until they did, this was Severus's game.

He was aware of Shacklebolt standing stiffly and unhappily by, his arms folded, but ignored the man. He had been the one who chose to bring Severus here, without trying to insist, instead, that the Wizengamot wait to hold a proper legal trial. He could put up with the consequences.

"Who _made the decision _to remain as vassal and Lord?" Selwyn asked, sounding as if even that minor clarification was costing her at least a lung.

Severus bowed his head. "The bond is two days old," he said. "I am not sure that we have remained vassal and Lord, so much as been swept along by the course of events."

Selwyn stepped back and turned to Fawley, saying something Severus couldn't hear. Fawley nodded, and turned, gesturing yet another wizard to come forwards. Severus watched as he came up to the front of the gallery, fussing with and straightening his robes before turning his long, donkey-like face towards Severus.

_Pius Thicknesse. _The man whom the Dark Lord had placed under Imperius and used as Minister during the war.

Shacklebolt tensed next to Severus, his motion so small that Severus would not have noticed it if he had not been so near him. But he was, and he knew Shacklebolt better from Order meetings than the man would have thought. Severus's observation skills had been trained in Death Eater circles, where to miss something was death.

Severus suspected where the attack would come from, then. He felt the weary certainty moving through his bones that had come to him when he found out about other Wizengamot activities in the past seventeen years. They cared little about legality, because the chances that something would be reported truthfully and publically outside the courtroom were small. This had turned, suddenly, from a trial on the Lordship bond into a trial for his activities during the war.

_And I was foolish enough to feel free at the prospect of the Dark Lord no longer being present. _That had been stupid. Of course they could still use his Death Eater past as fetters to trap him.

"You recognize this man?" Fawley was the one who asked the question, perhaps because Selwyn felt she had exposed herself enough for right now. Selwyn took the seat behind Thicknesse and folded her hands over her knees, looking so pleased that Severus wished for his wand.

"Yes," said Thicknesse, wrapping his fingers in the long tie he wore as though he could use it for a shield. "He is Potions teacher at Hogwarts."

Fawley gave Thicknesse a stern glance, and Thicknesse started and coughed. "And, of course, also a Death Eater," he added. "Someone who attended the Death Eater meetings that I was brought to _against my will _and cursed at."

"Someone who seemed to be trusted by You-Know-Who?" Fawley asked, probing delicately.

Thicknesse stared at Severus. The glazed eyes made Severus raise his own brows and lean back in his chair again. Perhaps this would be a simpler trap to escape than he'd thought. Prolonged exposure to the Imperius Curse almost literally scrambled one's brains. The chances were good that Thicknesse hadn't recovered enough yet to be a useful witness, no matter what the Wizengamot thought.

"Yes," Thicknesse muttered after too long a pause. "But—but he called him the Dark Lord."

Fawley looked as though he could barely restrain himself from shaking Thicknesse. Shacklebolt had leaned back a little, and Severus suppressed a smile. So this could be bad for him, but it would still take a while.

"Why not call him Voldemort? He's dead, and his Snatchers can't find you anymore."

Severus started and glanced up. Potter was walking in at the door, accompanied by two young Auror trainees, one strutting and one dragging. Severus reached over and touched the shield mark on his right arm, finding it warm. Of course, the courtroom was stifling; that was probably why he hadn't noticed Potter coming closer.

Either way, there was _no _excuse for the fierce welcome that rose up in Severus's chest like lightning.

_But it will be fun to watch what they do, _Severus thought, leaning back again, his eyes on the stunned and pale faces of the Wizengamot above him. _That is why I welcomed him._

The shield mark pulsed on his arm, soft and steady, giving the lie to that statement. Severus ignored it. It was hidden by cloth anyway, no one could see it.

No one except Potter, who stepped in front of Severus with a single glance at him, as though to make sure he had no visible wounds. Severus bowed his head a little, and let others take that gesture how they would. Potter's eyes lit up with a fierce glitter, and he turned back and faced the Wizengamot again, clearing his throat. It was the same sort of sound Severus might have made, were he free to.

_Perhaps we are more than Lord and Shield, _Severus thought, staring at Potter's back. _Perhaps we are comrades. _

His life had changed, and changed again, in the span of forty-eight hours. At least this change was more welcome than most of them, if it was real.


	13. Nick of Time

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Thirteen—Nick of Time_

Harry didn't know all the people staring down at him, but he doubted that mattered. These were the Wizengamot members who had thought they could judge him and one of his vassals without even informing Harry. And the ones who probably thought that he was obnoxious because maybe he would use his power for things they didn't approve of.

He wanted to choke.

But choking would do no good when they wanted words, and so Harry smiled and nodded at all of them and said, "I'm here to answer your questions about the Unforgivables I used and the Lordship bond and the other crimes that you wanted to try me for." He folded his arms and moved a little in front of Snape. There was an expression on Snape's face that Harry thought was really open, or maybe that was just the bond talking. Either way, Harry wanted to give him time to conceal it.

"Don't forget the crime of liking Slytherins," Eric whispered from behind him. Harry had no idea whether he was joking or not, and didn't have time to figure it out. He just nodded without looking around. That seemed to content Eric, who shut up.

"Mr. Conant," said the little wizard who stood in front, and he was looking at Eric, not Harry. "Why did you bring Mr. Potter here?"

"That should probably be Lord Potter," Eric said. There was no dent in his confidence at all, apparently, and Harry had to smother an incredulous laugh. He had never thought it would be a _blessing _to have someone arrogant as his ally. "I know it's ridiculous, but he has a Lordship bond to a bunch of people."

"You did not answer my question," said the little wizard. Harry quickly assessed him and decided he didn't like what he saw. This man had nothing in his face of Professor Flitwick's kindness, even though he was about that size. He had a mop of silvery hair and a face that seemed carved into stone by his frown lines, instead.

"I don't need to answer your questions," Eric said. "Because he will." He patted Harry heavily on the shoulder and stepped back.

The little wizard turned to Harry. "Why have you come?"

"I already said that," Harry said. He thought for a second, and decided that the best course was just to be as sarcastic as he liked, sarcastic the way he'd been in his head when he was a child. These people already hated him. They wouldn't listen to anything like rational discussion of a bond, not if they could start trying him for it and yelling at Snape when they hadn't even set up a trial. And Harry might convince a couple of the more sensible ones that he was going to stand up for his vassals no matter what. "How much earwax do you have in your ears that you can't hear me?"

Eric said something about recommending an ear Healer from behind him. The Wizengamot just stared at him. At last a blonde witch cleared her throat and stood up.

"Who did you use the Unforgivables on?" she asked, and sat down again.

"A Death Eater named Travers and a goblin who worked for Gringotts," Harry said. He kept his voice down with an effort. The disgusted faces peering at him over the gallery railings, and the frightened ones, made it hard to stay calm, no matter how sarcastic he'd promised himself he could be. Besides, this witch hadn't asked a question that deserved a sarcastic answer. "I cast the Imperius Curse on them. And I used the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow."

"Dear, dear," said the little wizard, fluttering his hands as he started to write something down on a pierce of parchment. "You know that using the Unforgivables carries a lifetime sentence in Azkaban?"

"Oh, yes," Harry said. "That's why I thought I should join most of my vassals there—" he had no idea if Zabini or Goyle had cast the Unforgivables, but he knew all the others had "—as well as all the Aurors that Auror Jane Stone told me about, who used it during the past few months. I hope you can continue to protect the wizarding world when they're all gone."

Silence. The blonde witch looked around at the others as though she expected one of them to answer, and when they didn't, she cleared her throat and said, "Well, um. The use of the Unforgivable Curses was declared legal for Aurors a few months ago. So they don't have to go to prison."

"Declared legal _by Voldemort_," Harry said, hating that none of them seemed to understand. "The same way I was hunted _by Voldemort. _If I'm going to be punished for what I did then, which was against the laws that he set up, then we should just go back to the old laws and punish everyone equally, not follow his laws."

Still none of the others would speak up, and although the poor woman's face was absolutely red by now, she continued stumbling her way through an explanation. "But—none of us precisely knew who was behind the changes at the time, and the same change had been made during the first wizarding war with You-Know-Who. It was revoked afterwards, of course. But we're not going to arrest the Aurors."

"But you'll arrest me," Harry said. "And one of my vassals who was a double agent and under the compulsion of an Unbreakable Vow to do whatever he was ordered to do, including casting the Killing Curse on Albus Dumbledore. And a bunch of students who cast them because they were told their families would be killed and tortured if they didn't…" He fell silent and chuckled when suddenly a whole bunch of them avoided his eyes instead of trying to haughtily stare him down. "Oh, _that's _the difference, isn't it? You'll arrest the students who are Slytherins or who did what the teachers told them to try and survive. You won't arrest the ones who did it for a while and were Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs or Gryffindors. Because what really matters is your _House, _in the end. And this scar on my forehead." He pushed his fringe away from his face. "Your Aurors were fighting for the wrong side most of the war, but it's okay, isn't it? Because you want them to be excused, and you aren't frightened of what they'll do with their political power, but you're afraid of me. That means I have to be stopped, somehow."

Silence for another few long moments. The blonde witch sat with her face in her hands and refused to speak up again no matter how much the other Wizengamot members glared at her. Finally, a tall woman with a prune face to rival Aunt Petunia's and iron rings on her fingers stood up and cleared her throat.

"It has less to do with which side they were on, and more to do with their motives in casting the curses," she said.

"So escaping torture and battling Voldemort's people aren't enough to excuse someone?" Harry asked, staring at her. "What is?"

"Being _innocent_," the woman said, and the rings clicked and sparked as she gripped the railing in front of her. "Not willfully torturing someone else because you hated them. Trying to help others escape torture."

Harry coughed helpfully. "So. Why does hurting someone else because you were trying to help your family members escape torture not count?"

"Because they are not _innocent_," the woman said.

"Define that." Harry rapped out the words with enough force, he saw, to shake the woman. She looked over her shoulder as though wanting someone else's help, and then seemed to accept that the rest of the others were cowards. She faced him and straightened her shoulders.

"They did not help You-Know-Who during the first war. They have purity in their hearts. Their families suffered during the war. They made some attempt to escape the teachers and demands that they might have made on them in Hogwarts."

"Well," Harry said, and began to count off the points on his fingers, "most of my vassals didn't help You-Know-Who during the first war, because they were babies during it. Their families suffered during the war, either going into hiding or having to give their properties and vaults up to Voldemort." The way that half the room flinched when he said that was _most _satisfactory. "And any time they tried to escape the teachers at Hogwarts, either they got watched more closely or they got tortured themselves."

"But they are not pure in their hearts," said the ringed woman.

Harry smiled at her. "What's your name?"

"Madam Tricia Selwyn." The way she said her name, it was clear that the first part was the most important, and she jerked her head up so that she could stare down her nose at him more effectively than Draco had ever managed. Harry decided he would hate to be told that, and treasured up the observation to tell him.

"I assure you, Madam Selwyn, that you won't find a greater number of people who are fanatics about being pure outside my vassals," Harry said. "I had to suffer from them telling me that I wasn't pure enough a number of times over the years."

Selwyn all but banged her hands on the railings. "I was not referring to purity of _blood_, Mr. Potter."

"Then define it." Harry stood there with his arms folded and grinned. He liked the way the balance of power in the room had shifted to him. Well, part of him hated it, hated that it was necessary, and wanted to go and have the trouble-free life that he'd sometimes dreamed of during the last year on the run. But if the choice was having power over other people and letting someone have power over him, then he knew which one _he _preferred.

"Being pure in heart means a sense of loyalty and trust," Selwyn said, as if she was reading from an invisible parchment in front of her, but slowly. "A commitment to the ideals of the Ministry and the wizarding community."

"How are you going to test _anyone _for that?" Harry had to ask. "Especially the people who did what they had to do to survive during the war? Which is almost everyone who works in the Ministry and who was at Hogwarts and not actively resisting and hiding?" He shook his head. "The number of people who are left alive and free is going to be awfully small if you insist on arresting and trying all the others. Maybe even getting some of them Kissed."

"You do not _understand_," Selwyn said. "It will not be that hard to make the determination, especially under Veritaserum."

"Are you going to ask everyone if they tortured other people or hurt them or betrayed them to escape consequences?" Harry asked. "Or only people that you've already decided are guilty?"

Selwyn smiled sweetly at him. "Well, at least with _you_, Mr. Potter, it will not take us much time to make a determination. You have already admitted your guilt for anyone to hear who'd like it."

Harry smiled back. "What about you? Did you come to work at the Ministry during the war? Did you pass any legislation they told you to pass? Did they intimidate you into keeping quiet and standing aside when someone else was tortured? Did you condemn people you wouldn't have condemned if it wasn't happening during a war?"

Selwyn lost her smile and leaned over the railing, hissing, "You _stupid _child, do you not understand how impossible it would be to run the wizarding world on the standards that you are demanding?"

"No," Harry said starkly. "I know what you want. You want to tidy everything away with a minimum of fuss and hope that no one will object. You want to clean up the 'mistakes' of the first war. For example, I imagine that you'd condemn Lucius Malfoy this time instead of allowing him to slither out of the consequences with a lie about the Imperius Curse. Good for you. But you'll also condemn students for being in the wrong House, and some people for running, and some people for hiding, and some people for fighting. It's all going to be in the service of who you're afraid of, and it won't care about real justice. I know that real justice wasn't served after the first war, _on either side. _Does the name Sirius Black mean anything to you?"

Selwyn narrowed her eyes further as though looking down a distant tunnel. "The name does not mean something to me as a badge of injustice _I _served," she said.

"Then you voted for a trial?" Harry asked. He had to admit that he had no idea who on the Wizengamot might have been against Sirius and who wasn't. He only knew that not enough people had clamored for a trial to make sure he _got _one.

"I do not remember," said Selwyn. "But I was not the one who decided that all Death Eaters at that time should be put in Azkaban as soon as possible, and I was not the one who decided that the evidence was too overwhelming even to put him under Veritaserum."

"Who was?" Harry had to admit that it would be good to have a name at last, to know who was responsible for that, for Harry growing up with the Dursleys, for Wormtail spending twelve years free and Sirius going steadily more mad in Azkaban.

"No one," said Selwyn.

"It was the circumstances of the time, you mean?" Harry smiled up at her.

Selwyn nodded, glancing around as though she wanted everyone to see how successfully she had tamed Harry Potter. "Exactly. One cannot wonder at that, with the chaos that surrounded every decision at the time."

"No one could wonder about it _at the time, _maybe," Harry said. "But I'm here now, and I won't let you arrest people and not arrest people and give some people trials and not give others one because you want to."

Selwyn closed her eyes, this time as though she was tired to death. "You will not succeed," she whispered. "You can intervene legally only for those vassals you are legally bound to. You cannot intervene for anyone else."

"If they take me as a Lord or ask to be put under my protection, I can," Harry said. "And you misunderstood me. I didn't mean that I think every Death Eater should be let go. There are tons of them I'll be happy to provide evidence against, and I think Bellatrix Lestrange deserved everything she got. But I'm _personally _famous, and I'm sure the papers will be happy to do interviews with me about all the terrible, unfair things I'm seeing and experiencing and hearing about." He smiled up at Selwyn, and then turned the smile on the rest of the Wizengamot, so they would get it. "This time, there isn't going to be chaos that lets you do whatever you want to people. Because I'm here."

He could hear a choke behind him, and looked over his shoulder at Snape. The shield mark was steady and warm on Harry's right forearm, and he didn't think anything was wrong with Snape at the moment that some pounding on the back and pouring of water down his throat wouldn't cure.

Snape's eyes had already gone blank again, any emotion that showed in them vanishing. Harry nodded cheerfully to him, and more cheerfully still to Shacklebolt, who was staring at him, and turned around to face the challenge of a different wizard, a fat one dressed in purple robes. Harry wanted to shake his head sadly. What Dumbledore made look fascinating just looked terrifying here.

"You don't have the legal right to _do _this," the man whispered, as though raising his voice would give him that long-delayed heart attack. "You can't do this. No one can. We of the Wizengamot are the last legal authority for the wizarding world."

"But you don't have the legal right to try me for the Lordship bond without my presence, either," Harry said. "Or to ask me whatever questions you want without making sure I understand the situation. Or to condemn someone without a trial. Yet you've done all that, anyway." He continued smiling, but he pulled back some of the mask from his face, and saw the large wizard jump. "And I'm kind of fucking furious that you would _still think_, even after I've killed Voldemort, that I'm someone Dark that you need to duck around and circumvent and arrest and call mad. So yeah, I'm going to fight. For all I know, I'll go to prison next, if I don't. You're afraid of me."

Behind him, he could hear a low mutter from Eric. "So, does that mean that he dislikes Slytherins or not?"

Harry didn't move, partially because it was silly to respond to the doubt in Eric's voice and partially because none of the Wizengamot members had made an attempt to answer him so far. He stood there with his arms folded and waited, turning his head from side to side. If someone tried to cast a spell—though he thought they were less likely to try it in a room where Shacklebolt acted as a witness—then he would be ready.

* * *

_This boy…_

The shield mark on his arm did not burn, he felt no resentment from the bond for choosing that word, but Severus corrected himself on his word choice immediately. This was not a boy, someone who could come in and argue like this. There were still things about Harry Potter that were decidedly adolescent, but he was not that young any longer.

He had argued better than Severus had thought he would. Perhaps most of the argument came from his own perception that he was being discriminated against, rather than fondness for his Slytherin vassals, but self-interest was a motive Severus had learned to trust.

Severus saw someone he could support. And if the shield of Harry Potter's reputation as the Chosen One was spread over them, it might protect them more effectively than the shield of the bond ever could.

"You are right that there should be legal trials," said Abbot at last, standing up and moving to the railing to take the speaker's attention away from Albert Brindis. Severus watched Brindis scuttle gratefully to a chair, his purple robes flapping around him. "But will you answer me one question, at least?"

Potter nodded. Severus could feel the tension in him melting like hot chocolate through the bond. He supposed that was all right. Potter would still be on guard when it came to anyone else, but Abbot was as harmless a politician as there was on the Wizengamot.

"The bond really happened the way you said it did?" Abbot asked. "No one initiated it?"

Potter shook his head. "Voldemort cast a curse that would have made Professor Snape a slave if it landed on him, and he did it because Professor Snape was trying to protect some of the Slytherin students. I got in the way, and I wanted to protect them, too, so I cast a Shield Charm. The bond, as far as we can tell, formed from the combination of the Shield Charm and the obedience curse. I didn't choose the people I bonded to. It was everyone who was behind my Shield Charm. And Voldemort certainly never intended for all of us to survive, let alone to make me a Lord."

Abbot nodded slowly. "Why did you want to protect them, when, if some of the reports we have received in the past are true, they did horrible things to you?"

Severus could not forebear a snort. They knew about what had happened to Harry Potter in school all those years, and yet no one had sent Howlers to Dumbledore to protest the Slytherins' egregious treatment of the Boy-Who-Lived?

Of course, Abbot not being a Wizengamot member who lied much, perhaps they really had received other reports since the battle, from Aurors or non-Slytherin students who had been in the school.

"I didn't think about it that much," Potter said, shaking his head as slowly as Abbot had spoken. "I just thought that no one deserved to _die, _and it was especially wrong that Voldemort wanted them to die." He turned and looked at Severus over his shoulder, and it was not only the steadiest but the friendliest regard that Potter had ever given him, by a long shot. "I thought Professor Snape was dead already. And then he gave me some…memories I needed." His voice stumbled. Severus wondered what _exactly _had happened after Potter left the Shrieking Shack, but knew it was not his place to ask. "Seeing him like that made me want him to live, made me want them _all _to live. I never knew it was going to be a bond, though. I think I would have hesitated if I knew what would happen."

The shield mark on Severus's arm twanged like a harpstring, and he managed to hold back his sigh only with the self-control that had often served him in Order of the Phoenix meetings. _He's lying. He would have leaped ahead even if someone explained all the consequences to him, because that is what he does. _

Severus wondered idly if part of his work as Shield was also going to be protecting Potter from himself, but he doubted it. The Shield served for the most part to ward off anger within the bond. Someone else would have to take up the work of explaining outside consequences to Potter.

"Would you truly stand up for anyone who put themselves under your protection?" Abbot bowed her head to keep her eyes hidden. Severus was not sure where she stood on the matter. Members of her family were among the ones tortured during the war, and she might have lost some, but on the other hand, she had sat on the Wizengamot throughout the war, enacting the legislation that the Dark Lord wanted, just as Potter had accused them.

"I'd have to," Potter said, his voice low and empty. "That's the way the bond works. But like I said, that doesn't mean I think everyone is _innocent. _I just want fair trials. For everybody. It won't help anyone if we condemn all the Slytherins and breed more resentment towards them in the future. Then they'll get angry and take their revenge someday, and it'll be a cycle of war that never bloody _ends_." He looked up at Abbot, his face gone pale. "I fought the hardest to save the world of anybody. Don't I _deserve _some peace? Not to have to fight again for a long time? That's what I want. That's what I'm trying to do—some of it because I'm selfish and don't want to fight, and some of it because the bond is making me, and some of it because I really do believe in a fair trial for everyone. But I don't know which part comes from which."

Severus saw Selwyn and Fawley lift their heads as at the call of a hunting horn. They would think they could use that against Potter, he thought. But Potter, even standing as he was now with his head bowed and his eyes on the floor at his feet, would make no easy opponent.

Severus was glad to know that. Glad that he might have a comrade here, a Lord he could work with instead of fear or spy on or serve.

_Which does not mean it will be easy, _he thought, darting his gaze over the Wizengamot again. _But we will make it easier together._

"And if you don't have anything else that you think we should be tried for," Potter continued, "I'd like to ask that you release my vassal Professor Severus Snape and I back to our cells."

They did it only because they wanted to plan a new strategy, Severus was certain, and this "trial" had not gone well for them. But Potter had been stronger than Severus had thought he could be, and that mattered.

_That will matter to all of us, _he thought, watching Potter's back as they paced out of the room, sensing the way that the Auror trainees who had followed Potter strutted after him, feeling the grip that Shacklebolt had on his wrist. _It must matter._


	14. In Holding Cells

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fourteen—In Holding Cells_

Draco leaned his head back against the wall of his cell, and closed his eyes.

The world around him was small and blank and silent. He hadn't seen his parents since they were ushered into this part of the Ministry, Narcissa's hand pulled from his by the Aurors. She had been steered into one door, Lucius into another, and Draco had a different one shut in his face before he could even strain his neck after his parents.

He sat there, and he breathed.

He hadn't had much chance to do that over the last few days, he admitted. Everything had been so _changed. _The Dark Lord was dead. He could never harm Draco and his family again.

Maybe Draco was deficient, but he couldn't feel all that grateful for that fact. Not when he had been hurled into yet another change of life, when he was a vassal and his family might have to be vassals, too.

_Is it going to be like the Dark Lord never died? When we're all busy serving someone else, even if it's someone who would never torture us? _

But Draco banished that thought. He knew too much of Potter, if he was honest with himself, to think that he'd ever lord it over them. Maybe misuse his power in some ways because he was so unused to it, but that would be ignorance. And Draco already had evidence that Potter had some good sense, and the sense that would let him take advice, too. Even if that advice was his bossy friend's.

Draco grimaced and let his head drop back with a thunk. _I'm going to have to make peace with Granger, aren't I? _

Well, he probably would, if he didn't want to spend the rest of his life resenting her. And he would really rather not.

He looked up as the door creaked open. An Auror he hadn't seen so far stood there. From the tight look on his face and his even tighter hold on his wand, Draco thought he knew what he had come for.

He stood up slowly, his hands on the wall behind him and his eyes on the Auror. Taller than Draco, broader than Draco, stronger than Draco. On the other hand, Potter wasn't, and he still had power over Draco. So maybe Draco could have power over this man, if he had the courage to talk.

He waited too long, though, or else he could never have found the right words. The man stepped in and began to speak in a long, low, whispering voice.

"During the first war, I was an Auror, and the only thing I was prouder of than my job was the fact that my daughter chose to follow me into it. She trained so hard that I worried for her sanity, but she was a good Auror. She respected the rules, but she knew when to break them. She could perform all the common curses and countercurses. She knew when to trust witnesses and when to ignore them."

He paused, and the cell filled with the sound of his breathing. Or maybe that was the sound of Draco's breathing. Draco tried to calm it a little, without much success.

"But your father changed that," the man said, and his voice had picked up. "He took her away. He _changed _her, and she came back convinced that You-Know-Who was righteous, because Lucius Malfoy argued her into that."

There was a long, choking sound. Draco didn't think it came from him, but he didn't bother to try and find out, or to ask what had happened, though by that point he really did want to know. He stood there with his eyes fastened on the man, and especially the man's ash wand, which had wavered down by his side but now was rising again.

"And," the man whispered, on a long, rising breath that made Draco's bones ache as he listened, "in the end, I had to kill her in battle. My daughter the Death Eater, who used to be the pride of my family."

His wand pointed straight at Draco's heart now, and Draco could feel his mouth watering with purest terror. He would have liked to close his eyes, but he couldn't. The man seemed to have paralyzed him in everything.

"I swore that I would pay Lucius back for that," said the whispery voice. "But not simply by casting curses on him, or taking away his money, or even investigating to ensure that he was arrested for possessing Dark artifacts. None of that was good enough, not when he took so much away from me. Only the same price would serve for me."

_Taking away a child. _Draco didn't really have to translate that, it was silly to try and translate that, but the thought floated like a bubble across the surface of his mind anyway.

"I didn't think the chance would come to me," the man said, as if talking to himself. "Not so late in life. But not so soon, in another way. Before I retired. Before the fire that burns in me because of him burned down to ashes."

His wand jabbed Draco's chest. Draco hadn't even realized that he'd stepped so close, but he looked down and there it was, his death, his future, not far below his face. The man jabbed, and then his wand came up and scraped against Draco's cheek, guiding his chin to the side. The man was smiling at him.

Draco thought he would have either begged for his life or pissed his pants, but once again, he was held motionless and couldn't make any decisions for himself.

There was something else, though, something that caught his attention and wouldn't let it go any more than the man in front of him would. Something that flamed and blazed against his arm, something that made him itch and tingle and burn, and he reached down to the shield mark on his arm and found that he _could_—

And that meant he could move, and that meant he could fling himself to the side, and that meant he could scream, in so loud a voice that he felt as if it must surely pass beyond the walls of the cell and to the ears of the one it was meant to reach, "_Potter!_"

* * *

The flaring heat of the bond woke Harry from a half-daze as he trotted down the corridor. He was actually looking forward to going back to his cell and eating whatever plain food they served him. His brain felt exercised and stretched from all the arguments he'd had with the Wizengamot. He was very sure that he wasn't meant to debate that much. Hermione, though, would have been right at home.

And then the shield mark was blazing, and Harry looked at it and saw the green dot furthest away from the others, trembling and moving in place on his arm as though it was going to fly off.

_Malfoy._

Harry broke away from the loose grip of the Aurors holding him, who were mostly Shacklebolt and a few others who had turned up as they walked back towards the cells. Harry thought more of them wanted the prestige of saying they had escorted the Boy-Who-Lived than were serious about arresting him.

Good. That worked in his favor. Harry darted past the door he knew they'd been leading him to and down another corridor instead, past bolts and chains and panels. He aimed straight at one particular closed door that didn't stand out among the others and kicked it in, which was easier because it had been left unlocked.

Inside was Malfoy, and a man Harry didn't recognize, but who wore the robes of an Auror. Of course he did, Harry thought, as he darted to the side, and spun on one foot, and got his body between the man and Malfoy. Malfoy helped by scrambling along on all fours and hiding desperately behind Harry, whimpering a little.

"I don't know who you are," Harry told him, aware that Shacklebolt and the others were hurtling along just behind. "But you can't harm my vassal without going through me first. He doesn't even have a wand. How can he hurt you?"

The man stared at him. Harry thought he could make out deep green eyes like his own in the hood, and iron-grey hair that reached his shoulders. But the man wore a hood, and he wouldn't pull it down.

"Who are you?" Harry said. He could feel Malfoy cringing behind him, but he didn't have the time to turn around and reassure him. He thought the man would probably attack the minute his back was turned. "Who told you that you could threaten my vassal?"

"An ancient debt." The man laughed, and the voice shivered up and down Harry's spine. It wasn't the same as Voldemort's voice, but it seemed to come from the same place. Harry narrowed his eyes a little. Maybe it was just because none of the Aurors around him were speaking up to say they recognized this man, maybe it was the voice, but Harry was starting to think that this one might not be human.

"Not the one that I told the boy it was," the man continued, sliding forwards a step. Malfoy whimpered. Harry shifted his stance so that he was still in between them. "His father does not owe it to me. But it is owed nonetheless, and it will be paid." The man's voice slid down, and he hissed dangerously. "It doesn't matter whose blood I have to take to get it."

"Then it can't be a very important debt," Harry said, in his best bored voice, while he watched the man's feet. He wondered if the man was about to curse him, or curse Malfoy, or break to the side and run away. It was hard to tell. "You don't think anyone important owes it to you, if you're willing to take anyone's blood."

"If you knew," the man whispered, with what sounded like delirium at the back of his voice. "If you _knew _what I know, you would not be so quick to defend a Malfoy."

"Then tell me what you know," Harry said, "and maybe I'll change my mind." _Honestly, was no one else ever raised with that lesson? Not that I ever changed the Dursleys' minds, but they still wanted to know what happened when I did something freakish. They didn't just rush into something and attack and yell._

The man stood watching him so long that Harry began to think he would simply walk away and disappear, or maybe attack. Then he reached back and flipped his hood down after all, shaking his head a little to get the hair out of his eyes.

Harry gasped. The man's face wasn't familiar, but his eyes were the exact same shade of deep green that Harry's were, and his mother's were.

"Did you never wonder who your mother's ancestor might have been, what kind of Squib, who was forced out of the wizarding world and married a Muggle?" the man whispered. "Did you never wonder whether sometimes a wizarding family's line ended but for that Squib, so that they alone carried the blood of their house? And whether the blood could flower into magic and someday allow me to return?"

"I didn't even know my mother was descended from a Squib," Harry snapped, feeling irritated. Was this another thing that everyone knew but no one had bothered to tell him, like the way his father had bullied Snape? "How can I possibly know who you are or what you want, or what family you come from?"

The man puffed out a sound that seemed to take a long time to come to Harry's ears. It was a laugh—Harry thought.

"I come from the Helton family," said the man. "You would not have heard of them. They died out except for Patricia Helton, the Squib your mother was descended from." His eyes were on Harry, so deep and piercing that Harry would have squirmed. Luckily, having Snape as a teacher had prepared him for that, a little. "And now, except for you."

"Well, I don't want you to attack the Malfoys," Harry said. His voice was raspy, but he forced himself to speak in a clearer one a few seconds later. No one was going to say that he had been slow or hard to understand. They would take his vassals away from him with any excuse in the world, he thought. "It doesn't matter what one of their ancestors did to my ancestors."

"They caused the extinction of the Helton family." The ghost, or whatever it was, slid a step closer to Harry. "Does that not matter to you?"

Harry took a deep breath and reached behind him. Malfoy clutched his arm at the shield mark, still panting desperately. Harry forced himself to shake his head. "No, it doesn't," he said. "I never knew them. I never knew my mother was descended from them. She was always a Muggleborn, and she saved me because she loved me, not because she had old family magic. I have the Lord bond to a Malfoy now. If I have to forget about what they did to me _personally, _then I have to forget about what they did to my ancestors."

"But I do not."

That was the only warning Harry had before the man's figure blurred, and he headed straight at Harry, and thus at Malfoy. Harry didn't have a wand, and he didn't know anything else he could do, so he just spread his arms as wide as he possibly could and jumped into the air, clutching at the ghost.

He felt an extreme chill, wending its way into his chest. His heart stuttered. He heard the same puffing laugh in his ears.

_Not you, _said the voice, either mental or so close that Harry couldn't tell the difference. _I would not harm you._

Then Harry was dropped on the floor, and there was a cloud of grey and green fluttering around Malfoy, choking off the screams he was trying to make. His hands flew up and down, and his head was battered against the floor.

Harry leaped at the ghost again.

This time, it was more solid, and he felt as though he had collided with a chest and then a back. Maybe the ghost had turned around very quickly. Harry didn't know. He didn't have time to think about it. He had to fight back.

He reached out and grabbed what he thought was part of the ghost's cloak. It slipped through his fingers like blood, but then got more solid. Maybe the ghost was trying to choke the life out of Malfoy, and for that, he had to be substantial.

The shield mark flaring furiously on Harry's arm certainly seemed to indicate that the ghost was trying to choke the life out of Malfoy, anyway.

Harry tugged hard at the cloak, choking a little as some of the mist slipped into his mouth. Then he found the collar, and he yanked it tight as he threw himself backwards. He heard Aurors scattering as he moved, and a second later, he slammed into the door of the cell. His head rang. Blood filled his mouth from where he'd bitten his tongue.

But he had his goal in front of him, and he wasn't about to yield now. He tightened his hold until, if the ghost was trying to choke Malfoy, Harry was also choking him. The ghost didn't seem to breathe, but that was all right. Harry just squirmed his way up the old grey cloak until he was kneeling on the ghost's back, and started to feel for his eyes.

The ghost whirled around. Harry went flying again, but some of the mist flowed behind him and made a cushion to cradle him before he could hit. Harry reckoned it was true what the ghost had said: it really didn't want to hurt someone who was the last descendant of the Helton family.

"What are you doing?" The ghost hovered in front of Harry, his feet no longer touching the floor. Harry decided he probably didn't have to pretend to be human anymore, either, now that he had announced who he was. Malfoy whimpered a little from the side, and Harry was glad that he was still alive.

"What are you doing?" the ghost repeated. "He is a descendent of the family who killed your family."

"I never knew that," Harry said quietly. "I never knew _them_. I have to defend him because I'm his Lord, and he's alive, and everyone else from my family is dead. Even my mum. There just—it's not like I _want _to be here," he snapped, because the ghost kept looking at Harry the way Sirius had when he'd said Harry wasn't like James. "But no one ever asks me what they want. They just do what they think I should approve of. Well, I don't approve of you trying to kill Malfoy. He's my vassal, and I have to protect him. What kind of position did you think you were placing me in, attacking him? Or do you not know about Lordship bonds?"

The ghost wavered back and forth in midair. "I know about Lordship bonds," he said at last. His voice was slow and reluctant. "But you should not be bound in one."

Harry snorted. "So, tell me. If you're meant to prevent danger to members of the Helton family, why didn't you ever show up before when I was in danger? Why didn't you even stop the _Malfoys _when they attacked me? Lucius Malfoy has gone after me with a wand before. Draco's tried to scare me. But you show up _now_. Why?"

In answer, the ghost vanished.

Harry watched the air where he'd been, and then waved a hand up and down in it, but there was really nothing there anymore, and the freezing clutch had vanished from his heart. He stood up, wincing as he brushed his hand up and down his chest, and walked over to Malfoy, kneeling down in front of him. He was sitting with his knees drawn up in front of his face, and didn't seem to realize that the ghost had gone and he was all right now.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked, and put a hand on Malfoy's knee when he wouldn't move, just shivered and huddled into himself.

* * *

Draco couldn't make his tongue move from the top of his mouth for a long second, even though he wanted to answer Potter's question.

_A blood-ghost. You saw a blood-ghost. _

They were supposedly spirits bound to a family, _part _of the family, who would come to life when their bloodline was in danger from a specific threat. Draco had never heard of anyone who'd seen one, though. Lots of them had gone dormant when pure-blood family lines died out, the way that this ghost had described the Helton line doing, and Lucius had been prone to brag that the Malfoys were too capable of taking care of their vengeance to need one. If the Blacks had one, Draco had never heard his mother mention it.

_Trust Potter to have one, _Draco thought, and had to hold back a hysterical giggle.

"_Malfoy!_ Are you all right?"

Draco sniffed and gulped and finally managed to lift his head. Potter was crouching in front of him, staring at him in concern. He smiled a little when he caught Draco's eye, but his face remained still and wary.

"Now I am," Draco said. "I thought my heart was going to stop when it touched me, though." He reached out a tentative hand and put it on Potter's arm, and he didn't even think he needed to touch the shield mark. "You could have saved my life. Thank you."

Potter smiled at him, a little reserved. "That's what I'm supposed to do, as a Lord," he said, and patted Draco's shoulder before he started to pull his hand back.

Draco shivered. His heart was pounding crazily; stupid thing, it only seemed to have realized _now _that it could have stopped.

Partially, Draco had his father's words in the back of his head urging him to take advantage of the bond that connected him to Potter, and make himself important. But he also wanted to—well, make it clear that this was more, to him, than just any old connection that they might have.

"I mean it," he whispered. "Thank you." He took Potter's hand and held it near, staring at him, just so Potter would know how serious this was. "I owe you a life-debt now—_another _one, along with everything else."

Potter cleared his throat for so long that Draco thought he might have breathed in some of the blood-ghost, and by then the useless Aurors had begun to intervene. "Mr. Malfoy, you will have to let go of Mr. Potter's hand," said a tall one that Draco thought was Auror Shacklebolt from other times he'd seen him, and he stepped forwards and bent down as though he meant to pry them apart.

Draco shook his head and then ducked it. "Don't let them take me away," he whispered to Potter, as softly and appealingly as he knew how. "I don't know if I can stand on my own."

Shacklebolt narrowed his eyes at Draco as though he didn't buy that for a second, but as always, Potter rose magnificently to his rescue, practically coiled and hissing at the Aurors. "He was just attacked by a ghost," he said. "Something where even I didn't know what it was. Will you let him sit for a minute?"

"We have to get you back to your cell," Shacklebolt said. "And get you some food," he added, looking down his nose as though Draco was incapable of understanding the necessity for his Lord to eat.

"Yes, I know that," Potter said, but although he stood up, he kept himself between Draco and the Aurors. _As though they were the blood-ghost, _Draco thought, and smiled. Whether or not the bond was changing his mind so that he became more comfortable with the thought of serving Potter, it was nice to be taken care of. "But did anyone think to feed Malfoy?"

"I will."

Potter turned towards the door and smiled a little. Draco bristled. He didn't know the squat woman who had appeared there, or he might have felt better about Potter's attention turning to her.

Potter squeezed his hand without turning back to him, which was half-comfort, at least. "Thank you, Auror Stone. You'll make sure that my vassal gets something to eat? And Snape, and the others who were brought in with me and with them?" He looked at Draco now, and at least his eyes were soft and gentle.

"I will." The squat woman—Stone—moved into place between the people who had accompanied Shacklebolt, looking from face to face like she was looking for someone to arrest. "I would have come earlier, but there was paperwork I had to complete. It seems I cannot leave you alone for a second."

"It wasn't Aurors who threatened the people I protect this time," Potter said. "It was a blood-ghost."

Stone stood there, and then nodded. "Then you should find out more about it, and what it will take to placate it," she said. She glanced at the Aurors around Potter, and they backed off. "In the meantime, I will remain here to ensure that Mr. Malfoy is well-treated. _You _will take him back to his cell."

The cowed Aurors, including Shacklebolt, backed out, and Potter turned around and smiled at Draco. "I'll be able to know if it threatens you again," he said quietly, touching the shield mark on his arm. "But you can trust Stone. She was the one who made sure that a boy who cursed Pansy was arrested."

"He cursed _you_," Stone said from behind Potter. Draco sensed she was the kind of woman who appreciated honesty.

"Let's say he cursed everyone, and that might be more accurate," Potter shot back, and nodded to Draco. "Stay as safe as you can. I'll come if you need me."

Draco murmured his thanks, and sat down on the bench in his cell again as Potter walked out. Stone leaned out to tell someone to bring him food, while Draco hugged himself in silent excitement.

Potter hadn't acted as though he resented defending Draco from his own family's blood-ghost. He had smiled at Draco and spoken kindly to him and handed him over to someone he seemed to believe would protect him. He had even let Draco hold his hand when it might be embarrassing in front of other people.

Draco felt his cheeks burn as he remembered that he had also been one of the people doing the hand-holding, but it was no more humiliating than anything else that had happened to him since he became Potter's vassal.

And in the meantime, he knew that he had done something else important. His parents wanted him to make himself special to Potter somehow.

Well, Draco had given him someone to protect.

His father might scoff at that, but Draco had seen the way Potter flung himself into battle, and the way he got between Professor Snape and the Dark Lord when the Lordship bond happened. He needed someone, someone he could keep close and defend and who couldn't always defend himself.

And…

_It's nice to be taken care of, too._


	15. Speak the Truth

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Fifteen—Speak the Truth_

"Mr. Potter."

Harry looked up with a faint smile. After all, it was nice to hear from someone who didn't call him "Lord."

He'd had a filling if plain meal of toast and porridge and something that might have been pumpkin juice in another lifetime. Now he waited, his hands gently twisting around each other. What else did he have to do? It wasn't like he could read in here, with no books, and he didn't see the point in plotting and planning dizzily. The Wizengamot might do something he had never thought of. He would react when he had their plans in front of him, and not before.

But Auror Stone was in the doorway now, and of all the free people in the Ministry, she was the one Harry trusted to bring him real news. He sat up and nodded. "Yes, madam?"

Stone studied him with a faint frown, and then nodded back and said, "Your friends Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger are here to speak with you."

Harry wanted to close his eyes and melt down the wall, but it wasn't like that would bring Ron and Hermione closer. He cleared his throat as importantly as he could. "Send them in, please."

Stone's brows pinched tighter, but she stepped out and said something to a person waiting in the corridor beyond. Harry saw the swish of a scarlet robe and assumed it was an Auror. Ron and Hermione were probably right _there, _if they'd been brought under an Auror escort.

But getting up and running towards the door would just convince them that he was dangerous, too. Harry wrung his hands again and leaned back against the wall, his eyes on the cell door, waiting.

Hermione when she came in looked ten times more beautiful than she had at the Yule Ball, and there was Ron behind her, his grin lighting up the room. Harry charged up to them, ignoring the way Stone touched her wand, and hugged them both. He knew that Stone wouldn't cast a curse at them unless she thought him truly dangerous.

"Thank you," Harry whispered into Hermione's hair, and she leaned back and smiled at him, a little. Her eyes were too bright, but Harry knew she wasn't about to cry in front of Stone and all the rest of them.

"You're welcome," Hermione said. "Oh, _Harry_."

"I know," Harry said. "It's not as good as getting me free yet, but it's something, for you to be here." He held Hermione's hand tightly and turned to Ron. "What's going on out there? Is your family okay? What about Ginny?"

Ron snorted at him. "Ginny's not the one who got herself arrested because she told everyone about casting the Unforgiveables, mate."

Harry waved his hand. "Yeah, but she was pretty upset the last time I saw her." He thought he could say that much without betraying the secret he and Ginny had. They would just think that he was talking about seeing her in the Great Hall before the Aurors took him away.

"She's fine," Hermione said, speaking so quickly that Harry decided she probably resented the loss of time. "So are the rest of the Weasleys. A bit shaken up, but there's no one who was in the Great Hall who isn't."

"Except people like Lewis Boot," Harry muttered.

"He was arrested, just like you, so it doesn't matter as much what he's feeling right now." Hermione studied him with narrowed eyes. "What do you need?"

"News from outside this cell," Harry said promptly. "But I don't know if you can bring that to me, or if you want to."

"What do you want to know?" Hermione took her hand out of his and stood regarding him seriously, as though she was going to charge off and get everything he wanted the instant he said he wanted it. Harry smiled. The shield mark on his arm might bind him to his vassals, but he doubted he would ever find a bond as close and strong with them as he had with his friends.

"Yeah, mate," Ron added, shaking his head. "_Want _to bring it to you. Honestly."

Harry grinned at him, then turned back to Hermione. "I need to know what the Wizengamot is saying about the arrests, and the Lordship bond, and the end of the war, and all the rest of it. I need to know everything you can find out about the pure-blood Helton family, and this thing called a blood-ghost, which supposedly showed up to attack Malfoy a while ago." Even as he spoke, a new plan was coming to life in his mind, although it was probably only there because he had done it once before. Harry knew that he wasn't a strategist. Everything would be a lot easier if he was. "And I need you to carry a message for me."

"Okay," Hermione said. She didn't glance back at Stone because Harry hadn't, and luckily, Ron was able to keep his eyes under control as well, although they'd widened.

"Find the publisher who decided to publish that biography of Dumbledore that came out last summer," Harry said, as casually as he could. "I want to make sure that there isn't going to be any _unauthorized _biography of me coming out. Nothing that could make me look even worse in the eyes of the public, you know?"

He hoped they would understand him, considering who had written that biography, and they did. Hermione pressed her fingers briefly into Harry's hand, then said, "I'll let them know. You'd think that it would be too early to publish a biography, but I'm always amazed at how fast some people write." She blinked twice at Harry, too fast for it to be natural.

Harry had to smile a little. "Yes. Right. Although that's a bit rich, Hermione, considering how fast you take notes."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You were grateful to take advantage of how fast you could copy them in school," she said haughtily, and then abruptly hugged Harry one more time, so hard that Harry gasped a little. "Be _careful,_" she hissed into Harry's ear. "Please."

"I know," Harry said, and he didn't have the words to tell her everything about how he would be careful because he had to be, because now it would be his vassals who would pay for any mistake he made as well as him, but Hermione seemed to sense it anyway. She gave him one more squeeze, and stepped out of the way for Ron.

Ron didn't hug Harry, but he did shake his hand and look into his eyes. "You'll do this," he said. "I know that, somehow, you'll do this."

Harry could have questioned that, the way he wanted to. He really wanted someone to tell him what to do. Going into the Forbidden Forest had been one of the worst moments of his life, but he had to admit, it had been freeing as well. He was following orders then. There was only one step he could take to defeat Voldemort forever, and once he took it, no one else could scold him or pressure him into doing anything else. More to the point, there was only one right thing to do and he couldn't make any more mistakes.

But he had to be a leader, and it seemed he would be one for the rest of his life at this rate. He squeezed Ron's hand back and said, "Please take care of them, Madam Stone."

"I'll see that they get safely out of the Ministry," Stone said in a voice as neutral as the bench behind Harry as she led them away. "There's nothing else I can do."

Harry sat back down on the bench when they were gone and spent a moment massaging his wrists. He _thought _Hermione had understood his message. What was important about that biography of Dumbledore wasn't who had published it, but who had written it. And the publisher could get a message to her.

Now it just remained to be seen if Rita Skeeter would come to him—and if her beetle Animagus form could dodge the wards and protections the Ministry had put up during the war.

* * *

"Severus."

Severus didn't recognize the glittering white place he opened his eyes to, but that didn't matter. He knew the voice. And he had no intention of rising to his feet off the soft pallet that he seemed to have appeared on. It was ten times more comfortable than the bench he had gone to sleep on in the Ministry holding cell.

"Severus," the voice repeated, and the pallet disappeared from beneath him.

Severus heaved himself to his feet, and turned around with a scowl. He saw no reason to pretend that he was anything but displeased by this summons.

Looked at more closely, the glittering white place resolved into a replica of the Great Hall of Hogwarts, though empty of all furniture except a single table and with windows made of faceted diamond. And at the table sat Albus.

Severus thought about lying down and going back to sleep, but the problem was, this _was _sleep. And he thought he would only wake up into another dream if he did manage to close his eyes.

He took a few steps towards the table, and stopped with his arms folded a considerable distance away. Albus gazed up at him, twinkling as madly as ever. "Why have you stopped, my dear boy?" he asked, and spread his arms. "Is this not a beautiful place?"

"It's not a place that I wanted," Severus said quietly, and sat down on the edge of the bench furthest from Albus. For a moment, it twitched, and he thought it would shrink and draw him closer to Albus that way, but it settled and stayed in place. Perhaps Albus was content to talk to him from this distance. "I thought I would die. Then I thought—there would be blackness. Peace. Perhaps Lily again."

To no one else alive could he have said that, but Albus knew all his dirty little secrets already, and he wasn't anyone alive. Severus would be surprised if he could contact anyone outside Severus's head.

_This could be a dream, too._

If it was, though, it was a persistent one, maybe even one Albus had planted in Severus's head before he died, to come out only if Severus lived after the war. Severus sighed and leaned back, watching. Albus would say what he had come to say, and nothing would change that.

But Albus sat still, reluctant, it seemed, to say it. Severus watched him trace his fingers in circles on the table. They formed brief, sparkling rings, that then vanished.

"Is this the afterlife?" Severus asked at last, because if Albus had nothing important to say, then maybe he would let Severus go back to sleep. "I disapprove. It has far too much light."

Albus looked up with a smile that was almost sweet. "No, my dear boy," he said quietly. "It is not the afterlife, only a half-place that I lingered to speak to those who might need me. You, now. Harry not long ago." He paused, and fixed Severus with that patient stare he almost always used when he spoke of Potter.

Severus exhaled. "He did die. Or at least the Killing Curse struck his body and that was enough to fool the Dark Lord, and he came to you."

Albus nodded. "He had a choice. He could have gone on, died in truth. Then there would have been an end of the Dark Lord's Horcrux, but an end, too, of Harry Potter." Albus sat up, seeming to draw in the majesty that Severus remembered him so often clothed in. He supposed it was a privilege, of sorts, that Albus had trusted Severus enough to show him his power, rather than the dotty old man that he presented to the public. But considering that he usually showed it when invoking or mentioning the Unbreakable Vows, Severus could have lived without the privilege.

"Harry made the choice, though," Albus continued. "The harder choice, the more courageous one, to go back and continue fighting and defending. And you made yours, too, Severus." His gaze was hard enough now that Severus winced. "Which is why I am beyond distressed, my dear boy, to see you doubting your decision now."

"What do you mean?" Severus demanded. "I lived, but I never thought I would have another master. Both my masters are _dead. _There shouldn't be any vow or mark to hold me anymore—"

"I'm talking about the decision that you made in the Shrieking Shack," Albus interrupted.

Severus felt as though his marrow was flinching. He sat still, with his arms folded. It was the only rebellion he could make right now.

"You could have died, when the fangs tore your neck open and Nagini's poison entered your bloodstream." Albus cocked his head. "I know that you gave the memories to Harry, that you almost died protecting him and lying to Voldemort. You did all that the vow asked of you.

"But you chose to reach for that bezoar, and for that all-purpose healing potion you invented years ago, the one that can be absorbed through the skin of the palms and collects as condensation on the outside of its vial, for one too weak to break the glass…"

"You weren't supposed to know about that, you old meddler." Severus spoke through lips numb with shock, but he knew that Albus had understood him when the fool chuckled.

"Yes, I know," Albus said. "But you weren't subtle enough about ordering the dragon's blood, my boy. I still kept track of shipments and sales of that, in view of my old interest. So I knew where it was going, and once I investigated a little further and learned its purpose, I was content to let you make the potion."

"Because it might benefit your favorite, of course." Severus didn't know his voice would snap like a whip until he heard it.

Albus fell silent abruptly, and then looked straight at Severus and said, "You are exactly right. Benefit someone I cared for. That is the only reason I permitted a potion that powerful, and potentially deadly in Voldemort's hands, to exist."

Severus couldn't deal with what Albus's words implied, and he turned his head and stared blindly at one of the diamond windows until he thought he had both his tongue and his temper under control. Then he said, "I made the decision to come back to protect Slytherin students that I thought the Dark Lord might blame, in a way, for their actions during the war. Even if your side won, they were likely to be poorly treated."

"My side?" Albus had that light sound in his voice that he did when he offered someone sweets. "Is it not your side also, Severus?"

"My side consisted of Lily and myself," Severus said. "Everything else, I was made to vow."

Silence again. Severus had the impression that he had shocked Albus at last, or saddened him. But it didn't feel like a triumph. What Severus wanted most was for the white light around him to dim, to become peaceful blackness that he could roll himself in as if it were grass.

Well, no. What he wanted most was for Lily to walk towards him with her hand extended in forgiveness. But he knew he didn't deserve that, so he would settle for something in reach.

"Severus…I am sorry."

Albus had said that before. Perhaps not with this tone in his voice, and not in a way that soothed some of the old wounds on Severus's soul, but he'd said it. Severus refused to let it affect him any more profoundly now. He simply grunted.

"I am," Albus said. He stood up and walked towards Severus's position on the bench. Severus clung to his stillness with some effort. He would never have expected something like this. Yes, some things had changed in death—he had already seen that Albus had two whole hands, for example—but the soul couldn't, and Albus had a soul incapable of yielding.

Yet that man who could not yield knelt in front of Severus and looked up at him, his eyes so somber that Severus nearly reached out to check for a fever. Then he shook his head. He was being ridiculous. Ghosts didn't get fevers.

"I know you never thought you would be marked and have to serve another master," Albus began. "But you made the decision to come back, and I would like you to live." His hand gripped Severus's knee. "Not only because Harry needs you. Not only because young Mr. Malfoy and the others need you. Because you deserve to _live, _my boy, and find joy somewhere along the route."

Severus shut his eyes. He didn't want to admit that he had wanted this, some sign that Albus cared about him beyond his usefulness in defending Harry or as a spy against the Dark Lord.

_It is typical of my life that I had to wait until after he was dead to receive it._

"I am sorry," Albus whispered. "I am sorry for forcing you to kill me."

Severus did open his eyes in shock at that, and saw the white Great Hall dissolving around him. Albus rose to his feet with a grim set to his mouth, and _that _had never shown up save on the rare occasions when Albus went to battle.

"I can stay no longer," Albus said. "You are waking. I do not even know if we will be able to speak to you again." He held out a hand to Severus, but Severus did not try to take it. He didn't think it was meant for that. "Please, Severus. Live if you can. I hope you try."

The whiteness blew away in mist, and Severus was once again turning around on the bench as the wards on his door opened.

This time, it wasn't Shacklebolt. Two wizards muffled in heavy cloaks entered the room. Severus could see the color of those cloaks, just barely, in the dim light that filled the holding cells at night, and they weren't Auror robes.

"Take him," said someone waiting outside the cell, a voice that croaked and hissed the way someone would under an auditory glamour. "But be careful not to hurt him." There was a pause, while Severus leaned in and the two cloaked wizards seemed uncertain of what to do, and then the disguised voice added, "_Tranquillus_."

_Oh, very good, _Severus thought distantly, as the Calming Charm fell on him and subdued his emotions to a distant, drifting grey haze. This was the reason a potion was usually used instead, because a Calming Charm left a person almost incapable of feeling or speaking. But it would work perfectly to keep the Lordship bond from alerting Potter with any discomfort or fear on Severus's part.

His head flopping, a layer of velvet between him and the world, Severus barely felt the cloaked wizards pick him up. Then they were out the cell door, hurrying him down the corridor in search of places unknown.

* * *

Harry had to look away when the beetle crawled under the door into his cell and then transformed. Not even McGonagall was pleasant to look at when she was coming out of her Animagus form, but Skeeter seemed to take longer at it. Harry wondered if that was because she'd been an unregistered Animagus and hadn't dared practice a quick Transfiguration.

"Thank you for coming to see me," Harry said, determined that he would be polite.

Skeeter stood up and patted at her hair for a few moments. Making him wait, Harry was sure. Then she took out a quill and a sheet of parchment and faced him, holding both of them up like weapons.

"Why did you choose to call me on, Mr. Potter?" she asked, fastidious. "As you know, I'm much more of a biographer now than a reporter."

Harry widened his eyes. "Oh, but I was thinking of your future business, rather than your past one."

That caught Skeeter off-guard, the way he'd intended. He'd known he would have to bargain with her. The only difference was that what he could offer would probably persuade her with no harm to himself or his vassals, unlike the things he could offer to the Aurors who protected him.

"Oh?" Skeeter said at last, when she seemed to realize that Harry wasn't rushing into telling her what he meant. "Why do you think so?"

Harry smiled at her. "Because someone who spread around some interviews that caused trouble for the Ministry right now might impress me. I might think they were at least a _little _on my side. I might let them write my biography later, after the trials."

Skeeter stood up straighter before she could stop herself. Then she leaned back against the cell wall—not near the door, luckily, which still shimmered with wards and the other spells the Aurors were using to stop Harry from getting out—and watched Harry with a weird expression on her face.

"What?" Harry asked. He'd thought she would either ask questions or jump right to agreement, not do this.

"I've heard some people talk about you doing this since the Lordship bond started," Skeeter observed, and Harry kept from rolling his eyes. _Yeah, right, she's not a reporter, when she got that much information in a few days. _"You offer gifts that you never would have before. You _bargain. _Is it the bond making you politically savvy?"

Harry thought about that, then shrugged. "Maybe. I already know that the bond will help me take care of my vassals, and if it needs to tell me things about them or adjust my thinking, then it will." His spine crawled as he thought that, but he knew now that he'd been foolish to listen to Kislik. Unless there was actually a spell that would break the bond with no negative consequences for _anyone, _he didn't want to use it. "But I think a lot of it is just the saving-people thing that Hermione always told me I had."

Skeeter's lips twitched. "Ah. Your martyr complex."

Harry shook his head. "No. I'm not just making sacrifices to take care of the whole world, now, or a few of my friends. It's my vassals." He grinned at Skeeter. "And when you make deals and trade favors for other favors, my impression was that it was called _politics_."

Skeeter laughed. "I find you much more interesting and relatable than I did before, Harry Potter," she murmured. "Or should I call you by your title?"

Harry shuddered. "No, thanks."

He saw Skeeter's eyes gleaming, and knew she had probably noticed the shudder and was filing it away. But she said, "All right. I can't start the book until after the trials. What are the other restrictions?"

Harry met her eyes. "You say whatever you like about me. Look up dirty secrets, whatever. I'll even help. But you only say positive things about my vassals, or I'll do whatever I can to stop you."

Skeeter only nodded. If she was scared of the threat, Harry really couldn't tell. She took out her quill. "Then let's begin on the interview portion now, shall we?"


	16. Blood Bargains

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Sixteen—Blood Bargains_

Pansy didn't know where she was, but she didn't like it.

She kept quiet for the moment, though, just peering out around the edges of the Obscuring Ward that someone had bound over her head. Whoever had done this wasn't very good at it. They left the corners visible, and the ward wavered up and down like a flag in the breeze, rather than mimicking a perfect black hood the way it was meant to.

She could see the changing shadows and orange color that she associated with firelight, and hear low voices talking and footsteps passing back and forth. Behind her was a wall that felt like solid stone. Her hands were bound in front of her, the rope having a small gleam that Pansy thought was probably a sort of alarm in case she tried to undo it. She still seemed to be wearing the robes she'd gone to prison in, and that made her want to wrinkle her nose. She was overdue for a shower.

But she wanted to know what the hell was going on more than she wanted to be clean. She turned her head the slightest bit to one side, and the firelight tilted with her. Pansy thought she could make out a giant door, maybe made of iron or dark wood banded with iron.

She grimaced a little. She didn't remember the wizards who had snatched her from the cell distinctly; she thought they'd Confunded her. She knew that she'd started to stand, to fight and panic, but someone had hit her with a spell that stopped all that.

"Parkinson."

Probably no word other than her name could have made Pansy decide she was really hearing _that _and not someone mumbling incoherently. It was that soft. She tilted her head slowly back in acknowledgment, not trying to see in the direction the voice was coming from—her right.

"Zabini," said the owner of the voice. "And I think Malfoy is over there. Do you know where we are?"

"No," Pansy said, her own voice a little thread of sound. "What did they do when they took you?"

"Came in, asked if I wanted to be free of Ministry control, and then hit me with a Calming Charm," Zabini muttered. "I don't know why they bothered. Yes, I want to be free of Ministry control, and I wanted to be free of Potter. I would have followed them in a hot second."

Pansy thought a second, but although the remnants of the Calming Charm still clung about her brain, making her thoughts loose and foggy, she decided why a few seconds later. "They don't want us to escape," she whispered. "Or, I mean, that's not _really _what they want. They wanted to be sure that the Lordship bond couldn't sense we were in danger and have Potter follow us. It would have, if one of us panicked."

Silence from Zabini. Pansy turned her head towards him, rustling it along the stone as if naturally turning it in her sleep, but she still couldn't see much, just a solid black blur.

"So Potter might not even know we're gone." An undercurrent of _something _in Zabini's voice, too low for Pansy to identify.

"I think he will shortly, now that we're awake," Pansy said. "He could follow you into the Forest when he didn't know beforehand where you were going. If we're in danger and awake, then he knows."

"Maybe I ought to go back to sleep."

Pansy didn't get the chance to ask him whether he was joking. Someone marched towards her, crouched down in front of her, and dispelled the Obscuring Ward.

"Sincerely sorry for this," said the white-haired man in front of her, who had a beard so long that it touched the stone floor. "But we can't have you warning someone who's dangerous to us." He touched his wand to Pansy's temple and whispered the Calming Charm.

Pansy, in the moment before she went soft-headed again, clung to a scrap of what she knew about Lordship bonds, or thought she knew.

_We were awake, and I was aware that we could be in danger and upset about being where I was. That might be enough._

* * *

Harry sat up, clapping his hand to his right arm. His shield mark was _blazing, _so much so that he almost expected his palm to be charred when he pulled it back.

There was nothing there. Harry eyed the mark for a moment, then considered the green dots around the edges of the silver shield. He hadn't paid attention to the mark all during his interview with Skeeter, except holding up his arm so she could snap photographs, because there was no sense of danger from or to any of his vassals. He had thought that they were probably doing what he was doing, sitting in cells and anticipating their next meal, although they didn't have as interesting a time of it as he did.

But this…

Harry still didn't know much about the Lordship bond, about what he could do and what he couldn't. And the heat that filled his arm this time was almost neutral. It was nothing like the intense tugging that had taken over when he followed Zabini into the Forbidden Forest. Or the spike of flame that had touched him when Draco was confronting the blood-ghost and needed Harry to save his life.

It was intense, though. What was he supposed to do? Harry slumped back against the wall and breathed, focusing on the shield mark.

"Lord Potter? What are you doing?" Skeeter had called him that throughout the interview, probably because it would make the eventual article she printed and the book she wrote about him sound more impressive.

This time, Harry ignored her. He didn't think that this could be hurried, whatever it was. He slid his palm over the shield mark, from top to bottom, and thought, _Show me where they are. Show me!_

When he took his hand away, he noticed that the shield's color had brightened, the silver turning the shade of a mirror. Harry bent towards it, and a reflection of his face moved in the skin-branded metal. He breathed out, and his breath fogged on the surface, too, the way it would on a mirror on a cold day.

Then the fog slid away, or became part of the picture, and Harry could see a cloudy image. It was a cavern, he thought, or at least someone's underground house; the stone walls were too regular for it to be a natural cave. A huge door banded with iron and shimmering with protective spells was set over a hole in the earth, and steps led down it. The door was at an angle compared to the rest of the room, which made it hard for Harry to sort out the perspective and make sense of what he was seeing for a second.

There were five shapes set along the wall, all of them with Obscuring Charms around their heads and their hands bound in front of them. Harry could make out Draco's limp hair, Snape's height and even limper dangling head, Zabini's hands, Parkinson's slumped shoulders, and only a little of Goyle's face.

The wizards moving around the big fire in the center of the room all had their hoods back, but Harry didn't recognize them, either. They were older, for the most part, with white hair and beards, but that might not mean anything.

_No. It means something. _

A different kind of fire was rising inside Harry, one that had little or nothing to do with the shield mark. With every breath he took, the heat grew more intense, roasting his ribs from the inside, bearing his heart up on a wave of flame.

_Someone took them. Someone took them and they're going to threaten them and me and it's nothing they did._

This time, Harry was utterly _sure _that all his vassals had been cursed and taken somewhere else because they were connected to _him_, not because they were Death Eaters or Slytherins. Some of the wizards around that fire might be Slytherins, although Harry thought they were more likely to be Wizengamot members or their friends, so old they had gone to Hogwarts a long time ago.

They had taken the five people connected to Harry, not the elder Malfoys. Not all the people who had come to the Ministry with him. Not even his friends.

_They didn't have any right to do that._

"Lord Potter?" Skeeter's voice had an eager, sharp tone that made Harry look back at her. "What are you seeing?"

Harry turned back to the shield mark, angry enough to describe it, and then paused. The image had vanished from his skin, and even the mirror-brightness had faded. So had the heat. Harry reached out and tried to polish up the shield mark the way he would glass, but it just sat there under his hand, just skin.

"I don't know, exactly," Harry said, trying to reach out and feel for his vassals the way he could before. Nothing happened. Had the people he'd seen found some way of blocking the Lordship bond? Or at least the way Harry could _feel _people along the Lordship bond? It explained why Harry hadn't known that his vassals were gone until now, even though it must have taken the wizards who'd kidnapped them a while to collect them all, Stun them, and take to that place. "But I really need you to publish that interview as soon as possible."

Skeeter agreeably started packing up her parchment and quills. "And you'll tell me about this the next time?"

"Maybe the time after that." Harry was on his feet, pacing back and forth as he thought. If he couldn't feel his vassals, did that mean the bond wouldn't give him any help in getting out of this cell to find them? Or did he just have to know how to ask it, the way the bond had shown his vassals in his skin when Harry had asked it to show him?

"I must say," Skeeter said, standing up and giving Harry a look that was impossible to interpret, "I like you _much _better like this, when you're willing to cooperate with me. I could have made you a star long ago if you had said you wanted it."

"Before this, you weren't worth cooperating with."

Skeeter opened her mouth a little. Then she studied his face, said, "This will be interesting," and changed back into a beetle and scuttled under the door.

Harry turned his attention to the shield mark again. Maybe he would pay for that remark later, and maybe he wouldn't. The important thing was that he needed to figure out a way to consult the bond, _now, _and get moving so that he could rescue his vassals before someone started torturing them.

Harry touched the shield mark with a finger in the center of it. Nothing happened. He worked his fingers around the outside, touching each of the green dots in turn. Still nothing. Harry nodded. They _had _done something to block the Lordship bond. When he'd done that before, even though it was absent-minded, he had known who each of the dots represented. Now, Malfoy's dot might as well be Parkinson's.

Okay. So. He had asked the bond for help by accident before. What would happen if he did the same thing on purpose?

He put his hand on the shield mark and said, "Get me out of here."

Nothing happened, again. Harry sighed. The bond didn't think they were in danger, so it wouldn't help him that way.

"Please?" Harry added.

Nothing.

"Lead me to my vassals." Harry tried to sound strong and confident, the way he imagined a Lord would sound, and the dots began to heat up on his arm. Harry bit back a gasp and watched eagerly.

The dots fell into a line on his shield, all of them aiming at the same place, at least to Harry's inexperienced eyes—the right lower corner of the mark. Then they turned and whirled and clustered together, forming one tiny clump of emerald on his skin.

And then they stopped moving.

Harry threw his hands up in the air and took another turn around his cell. _Damn it. _He was without his friends, without his wand—because of his "brilliant" plan to let the Aurors arrest him—and without anyone he would trust to ally with him. Skeeter would spread the word, but even if she was capable of somehow taking him with her when she changed into a beetle, Harry doubted she would. Too much risk for her, not enough reward.

_Who says I'm not a good judge of character? _

There was…one more possibility. It could be dangerous, in fact, it almost certainly was, but Hermione hadn't come back to tell him anything about it yet. And Harry didn't know what else to do.

He cleared his throat and tried to sound as impressive as he could when he announced, "I call forth the blood-ghost of the Helton line." That was the only thing he knew to refer to the man as. If he had a name, Hermione could probably discover it, but she wasn't here right now.

The air in front of him wavered and turned slowly to steam. Harry squinted and did his best to see through it. He knew the blood-ghost had formed a solid enough body to attack Draco once before. There was no need for him to appear with all these dramatics, Harry thought. He fell back against the bench and waited, folding his arms.

The blood-ghost came into being so slowly that Harry thought he was probably reluctant. Too fucking bad. If he could use him to find his vassals, then Harry would. The blood-ghost was the one who had insisted that his purpose was to protect and help the last person with any sort of Helton blood in them.

"What do you wish?" The ghost's voice was low and wary, and the only thing Harry could see under his hood as it peered at him was the green eyes.

"I want to find my vassals," Harry said. "Someone took them prisoner and removed them from the Ministry. I managed to get a vision of them sitting in a large stone room around a fire, but whoever took them must have blocked the bond somehow, because I can't feel their emotions or get a good sense of their direction."

The ghost half-shook its head. Harry thought he heard the hood rustling, but it remained unsubstantial, so maybe not. "I would say that is a good thing. It means that you will soon be rid of the binding of the Malfoy heir to you."

Harry snorted. "Then you know some way of breaking the Lordship bond that no one else does?" He had to pause and think about that a second later. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. The blood-ghost was from a long time back, and people might have had more magical knowledge about Lordship bonds then.

"No," the ghost said. "I think they will kill the Malfoy, and then you will be free from that encumbrance."

Harry sneered at him. The ghost, as much as Harry could see of his face, looked startled. "Fat lot you know," Harry said, folding his arms. "They took my vassals from me as quietly as they could, and they didn't hurt them. I _know _they didn't, because I would have felt their pain. The mark on my arm was warm, but it didn't burn the way it would if they were in danger."

"Perhaps the block they put on the bond blocks that, as well," the blood-ghost pointed out, a helpful little lilt in his voice. "Perhaps they are torturing them to death right now, and you can't feel it."

Harry choked back the desire to shout at the idiot. The blood-ghost was the only idea he had right now. "Maybe," he said. "But they looked unhurt in the vision I had of them. Besides, if my enemies kill them, they lose any hold they have on me."

"What would they want to force you to do?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Probably some kind of political non-interference. I scared the Wizengamot when I talked to them, and they don't like the idea of me running around being both the Boy-Who-Lived _and _a Lord. The best thing to do is keep my vassals hostage, because then I can't act for fear of harming them."

The blood-ghost shook his head, so slowly that Harry didn't hear his hood this time. "I cannot help you," he said. "I am only sworn to our line to protect you from the machinations of Malfoys, who hurt our family so badly."

"Then answer me another question," Harry snarled. "Why didn't you help me when Lucius Malfoy threatened me before?"

"He was not the end of the line," the blood-ghost said.

"Presume that I don't understand _anything _of what you're going to say," Harry snapped at him.

"He is not the end of the line," the blood-ghost repeated. "It would avail nothing to harm him, not when he had a son who could continue the work of engendering Malfoys. I had to wait for a time when his son was a burden on you, and near the place of my power, in order to manifest and deal with him."

"You've got a _twisted _sense of responsibility," Harry said, staring at the green dots on his arm, the clump of green, and trying to figure out again why he didn't feel anything more than that intense warmth. If one of his vassals died and he could have protected them, would he die, too? What about all of them? He hadn't had Hermione read up on that, because the world had been going mad in too many other ways.

"I am meant to deal with Malfoys," the blood-ghost said. "Not with anything else."

"Right, you said," Harry muttered. "And you won't deal with helping me rescue this Malfoy, because he's the end of his line."

"Yes," said the blood-ghost.

Harry closed his eyes. He didn't know what to do, and the thought galled him. What would his vassals feel and think, as they felt death closing in around them and didn't know why he couldn't come? If he was—

Then something else the blood-ghost had said finally caught up with him, or Harry caught up with it. He sat up, staring. "Near the place of your power," he whispered. "The place of your power is the _Ministry_?"

The blood-ghost went still.

"It is," Harry said. "Although that still doesn't explain why you didn't interfere when Lucius attacked me in the Department of Mysteries."

"He was not—"

"Right, then _that _does." Harry waved his hand. His mind was racing, and strange, inchoate thoughts whirled around and around. "Look. Would you—would you be able to attack someone else in these cells, if Draco wasn't the end of his line?"

"He is."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I asked you if you _could, _not if you _would_."

The blood-ghost seemed to mull over his answer for a long time before he gave it, as though he wanted to be sure that there was absolutely nothing in it that would help Harry. "Yes," he finally said.

"Good," Harry said. "And if you could attack someone else, then you could manifest and speak to them. Then I want you to carry a message to Lucius Malfoy, and ask if he's willing to sacrifice himself to save his son."

The blood-ghost was so silent, so still, that Harry thought it had disappeared until he looked up again. Then the blood-ghost said, "You are—asking him to perform an exchange. You are asking him to become my victim, the Malfoy who would exorcise the blood vengeance that his family owes the Helton line, in place of his son."

"Yes," Harry said simply. "And I'm asking you to accept the bargain, because Draco is far away now and might not ever return to become your victim, but Lucius is here, and he _could_."

"But there is nothing he can do for you, not if his son is far away," the blood-ghost said. "He does not even have the power to pass between one cell and another here, as I do."

Harry licked his lips. "I think he might be able to do something. Can you _carry _things between one cell and another?"

"Yes." Less hesitation on the answer this time, as if the blood-ghost was interested in getting _one _Malfoy victim to kill.

"Then you could bring back some of his—his blood," Harry said. He was striking wildly in the dark now, his mind more full of images of the ritual Voldemort had used to come back than anything else. But blood was powerful, wasn't it? And everyone, the blood-ghost included, was always going on about how it linked the family. "His blood might allow me to get a hold on Draco and find him that way."

Silence, so deep and thick that Harry could hear the sound of the blood-ghost shaking his hood again. "You cannot think that Lucius Malfoy will sacrifice himself for his son."

"How well do you know him?" Harry demanded. "Well enough to make up stories about him, it seems, but not _that _well, not if he didn't come near the Ministry holding cells often. But I saw him during the Battle of Hogwarts. I know what he would do for his son."

The blood-ghost was silent. Then he pulled back his hood and his green eyes fixed on Harry once more. "He would agree to give you his blood and let you find his son in any case. But why should he agree to become my victim?"

"Because I need to bribe you to carry the blood and the message between cells," Harry said simply. "And that's your price."

"I cannot change my nature." There was what might be a very slight sneer of apology in the blood-ghost's voice.

"I know," Harry said. "But you can carry the message for me, and see what he says. Remember not to let anyone see you."

"I have existed centuries without that happening," the blood-ghost said, and flickered away.

Harry sat down in the center of his cell and sighed. His brain was racing, his arm was burning, but part of him wanted to collapse into a dark hole and never come out. What was Draco going to say when he found out what Harry had asked Lucius to do? What about the rest of them? What about Lucius?

The problem, though, was that no one else was here to help him or tell him what a good plan was. He had to do it himself.

He was dozing when he felt someone else in the cell with him. He lifted his head and opened his eyes.

It was the blood-ghost, and in one hand he held a potions vial filled with gleaming blood.

"He agrees," said the blood-ghost simply, and gave the vial to Harry.


	17. Resistance

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_Chapter Seventeen—Resistance_

Severus let his head droop, his eyes working at the edges of the Obscuring Ward that they had magicked back into place after the Calming Charm, no more darkly than before. That increased his certainty that this was no sophisticated band of kidnappers, but one assembled in haste, and the person who had cast the Obscuring Ward was the best in the group without necessarily being skillful at it.

Not skillful, either, not to notice that he had started to resist and recover from the Calming Charm within a very short time. On the other hand, perhaps they did not know that Severus was a skilled Legilimens. And Severus had always found it easy to excuse mistakes his enemies made that benefited him.

He tested the ropes that bound his wrists, flexing his hands casually back and forth. The bright light he had seen on them before followed the movement, but didn't give an alarm. Severus half-sneered. Someone _had _cast a spell that gave an alarm at every movement, but only until they got sick of being troubled by the Slytherin students rolling over or sighing in their sleep or breathing more deeply than normal. Then they had replaced it with a less powerful spell that would give warning only in case of an attack. Nothing in between seemed to have occurred to them.

Severus closed his eyes and retreated into himself. The Aurors had taken his wand when he was escorted into the Ministry, of course, but they had not conducted a thorough enough search of his pockets, and there was no taking the weapons that were inside the mind. Except with the Calming Charm or similar spells, which Severus had to admit was a clever tactic.

But spells wore off, while the ability to use Occlumency in the way that Severus did now did not.

Severus sank deep into his own mind. The training he had received in Occlumency, first from books and then from Albus, almost all concentrated on knowing himself, his own desires and thoughts and interests, both so that he could form effective shields and so that he could recognize when a force from outside was trying to influence him.

He could have done this before now, if he had bothered to think and find the silence he needed for it. But even if he had been left alone for long enough, Severus had to acknowledge, he might not have managed it. His head was swarming and swimming and spinning with thoughts, and he needed to banish them to finish this.

He sank, and when he was at the bottom of himself, behind the Occlumency shields that he kept in place at all times as well as the shields that locked away certain memories, he opened his eyes.

_Yes. _There was a light in him that had not been there before, as startling and unexpected as the glow of some deep-sea fish at the bottom of the underwater abyss. Severus reached towards it.

It was the Lordship bond.

He saw it as silver and black, but a radiant black that illuminated the still depths around him where once there had been nothing but quiet, the kind of focus he could bring to bear on a difficult potion. Severus walked around it, noting its form, a chain, and the way it reached away into his thoughts, slowly reshaping them, the way a chain could cause marks on a wrist the longer it rested there.

For the moment, Severus could not worry about how it might choose to deform his thoughts. The more aware he became of it, the more he could resist it.

And he had other concerns now.

He reached out and stroked the bond with a long finger of thought. It tingled at him, and then simply lay there and shone. So much for the notion that he could send a message to his Lord simply by touching it.

There might be another way to break free, though. If he worked at it.

And right now, silence and focus would only benefit his plan.

* * *

Harry held up the vial of blood. It shimmered a little, but otherwise looked like normal blood, and he didn't think the blood-ghost would have much reason to trick him. Lucius was the only Malfoy here at the moment.

_Well, other than Narcissa. _But the blood-ghost seemed excessively concerned with members born to a family, not just those who had the name, or else Harry thought it would probably have gone away forever when the last person with the name Helton died out.

He took a deep breath and uncapped the vial. He flinched a little when the blood dripped onto the skin of his palm, but so what? He could flinch all he liked, and it still wouldn't change what he had to do.

He turned around and slapped the blood on his shield mark.

There was a hissing noise, as though the skin was a hot stovetop he'd spilled water on, and the shield darkened. The clump of green dots turned red, even though Harry had deliberately applied the blood to a different part of the shield than the one that held them. Harry found himself holding his breath without meaning to, and drove it out of his lungs with a grunt. Now wasn't the time to be concentrating on anything but how he would use the blood to track Draco down.

He closed his eyes. He could feel the shield heating and cooling in random patterns, probably in reaction to the blood. At least that was stirring the magic of the bond up, and he hoped it would be in a way that his enemies hadn't thought to block. Where was Harry going to get the blood of anyone related to his vassals, locked up in a cell?

_I want to show them that they deserve to suffer, for underestimating me._

And maybe that was the bond, but maybe it wasn't. Harry had felt the same irritation racing through him when the Ministry had turned against him in fifth year. He just wanted people to _listen _for once, and stop acting like he was a stupid kid. Did they have to be afraid of stupid kids?

_Take me to the nearest vassal who has the same kind of blood as this, _he told the shield. He could feel the bond beginning to tighten around him like a constrictor. He ignored that, and what he thought were the watching eyes of the blood-ghost. _Take me!_

There was a long release of tension, and then Harry bounced through the darkness as though he was on one end of a string and his vassals were on the other. Long after he expected to crash into a wall if he was still in the cell, he kept going.

Harry smiled and opened his eyes as light flickered into being around him. He had no wand, but that wasn't much of a problem, when everyone around him turned and stared at him in astonishment.

"Hi," he said, and tackled the nearest wizard, snatching his wand and whirling around to face the nearest group.

* * *

Severus released his hold on the bond with a gasp. He had felt it reel and snap tight, and knew he had pulled Potter to them—well, if he was lucky, that was what had happened. Perhaps he had damaged his mind and the bond instead.

But he could hear yells, and Potter's voice saying, "Hi," and he reckoned it had worked.

He opened his eyes and exerted his will to smash through the Obscuring Ward, something he could have done at any time with his mind free but hadn't wanted to until there was a purpose.

Potter had blocked several Stunners from the wizards around him and Stunned several of them in turn. He was backing around the fire towards Severus and the other prisoners, his color so high that he looked as if he had a fever. And the whole time, he was smiling.

_Of course he would be, _Severus thought, and shook his head. He did not think the boy understood the seriousness of battle, most of the time. He had survived so far, so he thought he would always survive. It was the same lack of thought that had led him to stepping in the way of the Dark Lord's obedience curse.

But since Severus's life was now tied to his, merely sitting still and thinking sarcastically about Potter's lack of caution would not help. Severus waited a moment, and then surged to his feet, rolling down again as several of the combatants turned and aimed their wands at him. Spells cracked the stone above his head, and he grimaced. _So much for the belief that they would not need to hurt us._

His Slytherins were still confined by the Obscuring Wards and the Calming Charms, it seemed, and if they were not, gave no signs of moving. Severus considered very fast. The mind arts were rarely of use as offensive weapons, because they could cause as much pain to the person wielding them as to the wizard they were directed against.

But Severus knew one way, the same way he had "trained" Potter in Occlumency towards the end of the lessons. He had only to catch someone's eye…

A wizard with a trailing beard hurried towards him. Severus caught his gaze, and dived inside.

There were a few pitiful Occlumency barriers that Severus smashed through easily. They didn't hurt. What did was digging into the core of the man's mind, seizing control of his memories and overwhelming him with them until he crumbled to the floor of the cave-cellar, screaming.

But then it did not matter, because Severus had the man's wand, and he could make his enemies hurt in another way.

* * *

Snape was up and striking back, Harry saw from the corner of his eye. Good. That meant at least one of his vassals could defend themselves.

But the others were still sitting there with their heads dangling and their hands bound, and whether they were too afraid or whether they were injured, Harry didn't know. He was having enough trouble with the emotions that surged through his mind without tracing everyone's individual feelings.

He could feel the bond whispering to him, pulling at him, urging him to avenge the insults to his vassals and his honor. He wanted to kill the wizards he was fighting, not just Stun them. And there was the chance that he would miss and get Stunned himself if he didn't kill them.

But he also wanted to leave them alive to question them, and he didn't want to be a murderer, and he didn't know what good killing them would do. It would just make him into a murderer as well as someone who had used the Unforgiveables during the war.

He whirled and cast the Stunner again and again, and spent a lot of time dodging, and gritted his teeth against the way that his arm had heated up. He knew the shield mark would calm down again if he did what it wanted.

_Why should I? It didn't do what _I _wanted until I smeared it with blood!_

Maybe that was a stupid way to think of it, but it kept him sane in the face of the longing to kill. And now Snape was taking down wizards by, apparently, stringing their hair around their ankles and tripping them up that way, and Harry felt a little reassured. One of his vassals was safe. He didn't have to kill because Snape wasn't.

Of course, that only went well until someone got desperate.

"Potter! Drop your wand or I'll do it!"

Harry whirled around, blocking another Stunner with a Shield Charm. A wizard with grey hair that fell almost to his waist and red robes that blazed in the dim cellar was crouching beside Pansy. His wand rested on her throat. Pansy herself stayed so still Harry didn't know whether it was good sense or fear or unconsciousness that held her quiet.

"You won't do it," Harry said, while the whirling anger in his head coalesced and started to build, and he saw Snape turning around out of the corner of his eye. Harry's head was light with his fury, and his hand trembled on the stolen wand. It hadn't really resisted him so far, just worked with him, and that was good. That was _fine. _

If this idiot threatened to cut Pansy's throat, Harry wasn't sure how long he could hold on to the more violent impulses he'd been fighting.

"Won't I?" The wizard held Pansy's head closer to his neck and firmed his hold on his own wand. "Well, maybe I won't if you put down your wand and swear that you won't participate in politics. That's the only thing we wanted, the only reason we snatched your vassals. We—"

At this point, Pansy bit him in the throat.

The wizard shrieked, and Harry Disarmed him. Snape cast a Summoning Charm on the wand at the same time. Harry didn't know why, and he didn't care. As long as the wand was out of the way and the idiot couldn't use it, then Harry would be happy.

He cast _Incarcerous _on the wizard instead, and then hurried over to Pansy. Most of the other wizards had started Disapparating or backed off, staring, hovering. Harry wondered what they were waiting for. Did they think there was still a chance they could win? Or maybe they wanted to see what he would do now that someone had challenged him directly and he had seen one of his vassals in danger.

Well, maybe that had _something _to do with it, Harry finally realized as he crouched next to Pansy, but more of it had to do with the enormous black snake that Snape had conjured in front of his own feet. It reared up and flicked its tongue at the wizards, ready to lunge. It probably could do it before any of them could Disapparate, Harry thought. Good.

He wanted some prisoners to question.

He cast a quick _Finite _on the black spell around Pansy's face and the ropes on her wrists. But the ropes didn't disappear, as they weren't magical, so he had to slice through them with a Cutting Curse instead. By then, Pansy was shaking her hair back and running a hand through it, as though the blinding spell had also disordered it.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked, considering her as closely as he could. This close, he could sort out her emotions from the thick group of them in the back of the bond. She pulsed, she burned, but Harry didn't think it was with the particular kind of burning that would come when she was hurt.

"Shaken," Pansy said. "Bruised. But all right." She glanced off to the side. "You might want to make sure of Goyle, though. I don't think he's moved since they brought him here."

Harry nodded and stood up, looking at Snape. "Can you hold them for a little while?"

"Yes," Snape said simply. "I have raised anti-Apparition wards. No one else will be getting in or out." He looked at Harry, a brief glance, and then looked back—not at the wizards he was holding captive, but the snake.

Either Harry was getting better at communicating with his vassals or the bond added some extra backing to Snape's statement, because Harry knew what Snape meant without having to ask. He nodded at the snake. "_Hold them_," he said in Parseltongue, making sure that he focused on the serpent and didn't say it aloud in English. "_If one of them moves, then you have my permission to bite them._"

The snake turned the upper part of its body towards him and inclined it in a little bow, while some of the newly captive wizards began to shriek at the sound of Harry's hissing. Harry smirked, cast _Finite _on the spells on Draco and Zabini, and then dropped to his knees in front of Goyle.

Once again, it was easier to feel what was going on with a particular vassal when he was near them. He wasn't sure that he _had _been close to Goyle, so far, not by himself. But he saw what Pansy meant. There was a disturbing blankness coming down the bond, as though Goyle had found a way to block it.

Harry took off the blinding charm, and Goyle stared past him, his eyes fixed and unblinking.

Harry waved his hand up and down in front of Goyle's eyes, his heart sinking. Then he cast an _Rennervate. _It didn't work. Goyle was breathing, but he seemed to have gone into some kind of deep shock.

Harry listened to the bond, and rubbed the shield mark, and that didn't help, either. He grimaced and stood up. He only knew one other person in the room who was skilled with Legilimency, which meant he would have to call Snape to figure out what was wrong with Goyle and take over control of the snake himself.

"Let me."

Harry started and almost drew his wand as he watched Draco kneel down beside Goyle. Then he relaxed, a little. Draco was Goyle's friend. He might not know what to do as effectively as Snape, but Harry could be sure he wouldn't hurt him.

And hadn't Draco received some Occlumency training from Bellatrix or something? Harry turned around to keep an eye on the wizards who had kidnapped his vassals, his body between them and Draco. He would let Draco do what he could, and only insist on taking them back to the Ministry if Draco had to give up.

* * *

_Come on, Greg._

Draco took a deep breath and picked up Greg's hands. They were as cold and as pale as his face. He had seen some Death Eater prisoners get like this sometimes, after long sessions of torture.

But he didn't think Greg had been tortured, at least not in the conventional way and by these people. And the symptoms also fit another condition he had learned about as part of his Occlumency training.

Draco didn't want to go into Greg's mind. He didn't want to search for the horrible memories that his aunt had told him might cause the condition like this, so prominent in someone's thoughts that they shut their thoughts down to avoid them, and he didn't want to smash through them and allow other memories to circulate instead.

But he didn't think he had much choice. Professor Snape was occupied right now, and no one else knew Greg well enough to do this, even if they had the right skills.

Draco met Greg's eyes and murmured, "_Legilimens._"

The surface of Greg's eyes seemed to tremble and break around him, like the surface of a pond that he was diving beneath. Then Draco had the alien sensation of passing in. He shuddered. He usually experienced this from the other way around, as Bellatrix or the Dark Lord pawed through his thoughts.

But both of them were gone now. He hadn't forgotten that. He forged ahead, and stepped into Fiendfyre.

Of course that was the horrible memory that filled Greg's thoughts. It wasn't a _surprise. _But it made Draco flinch and want to hide, because he had been there, too, and he saw, again and again, Vincent disappearing into the flames as the two of them were lifted to safety.

It wasn't easy, it was horrible, but Draco gathered up his memories of the Slytherin common room since the end of the battle, and even Potter. Potter who had been there in the fire, too, who was only a distant disappearing figure in Greg's memories, and whose bond could be a promise of peace.

He threw the images at Greg, the image of them sitting in the Slytherin common room and laughing at Gryffindors, and the image of Potter looming between them and the curse the Dark Lord had cast, his eyes so wide that it hurt to look into them. Draco pushed and shoved them into the Fiendfyre, soaking the imaginary flames, building over them, forcing Greg's obsessive memories further and further back.

It hurt. The Fiendfyre didn't burn, but there was pain in Greg's mind, and it was like swimming in heavy water to move through it. Draco breathed and threw the images, breathed and spun them, breathed and built them. He didn't know what metaphor was best; he just knew that some of the pain was fading. Greg wasn't normal, but Draco felt the distant little pulses that meant his eyes were fluttering open and he could breathe and blink, and he gratefully jumped back and out of his mind.

He opened his eyes to find Greg staring at him. Draco reached out and patted him clumsily on the shoulder. "You're going to be all right," he said.

Greg didn't respond, but shut his eyes, and began to sigh through something that looked like normal sleep.

"Thank you."

Draco shivered a little at the intense joy that flooded him when he heard Potter speak like that. He turned around and gazed up, and Potter gazed back, with a smile that made Draco want to kneel. Since he was kneeling already, that made his head reel.

By the time he could listen again, Potter and Professor Snape were already speaking about what they should do, take their prisoners back to the Ministry or question them right here. Draco was in favor of questioning them here, since the Ministry had been incompetent enough in the first place to let them kidnap Draco and the others, but no one was asking him. He leaned back on the wall of the cellar and relaxed.

"You're enjoying it, aren't you?"

Draco glanced up. Pansy stood over him, and there was a complicated expression on her face that lingered on the outside of a scowl.

"Enjoying what?" Draco asked, turning back to Potter and Snape. Snape seemed to have won the argument and was stepping towards the wizards who cowered in fear of his snake. Potter moved forwards to put his hand on the snake's head, and any attempt it might have made to follow Professor Snape subsided into a shiver.

"Enjoying being part of this bond." Pansy sat down beside him and looked sideways, as if she needed to figure out what Blaise was doing. Since for now that seemed to be "examining his wrists to see if the rope had left chafing," Pansy looked at Draco again. "Enjoying having someone protect you."

"Yes," Draco said. He saw no reason to deny it. "What, aren't you?"

Pansy sniffed. "We'll see how well he does as a platform to get me into politics."

Draco smiled and said nothing. He thought Pansy would probably either change her mind because of the bond or manage to persuade Potter that her politics were harmless. One of them or the other would yield, or they would compromise. The bond no longer felt like slavery to Draco.

He glanced back at Potter just as Potter glanced back at him. Potter's eyes widened and softened—at what, Draco didn't know. Maybe just the spectacle Draco and the others presented, sitting like that.

Draco gave him a little wave. Potter still went on looking for a second before he nodded and faced towards the front again.

Draco settled down to half-listening to Pansy's monologue and half-watching Potter. He wasn't naïve enough to think everything would be all right after this, but it was all right for the moment, and that might be the best they could get.


	18. Affairs of the Blood

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_Chapter Eighteen—Affairs of the Blood_

Severus pulled roughly out of the mind of the man he'd questioned, and stepped back, grimacing. He had had to use Legilimency with all of them; they wouldn't respond to ordinary means of interrogation, and Potter wouldn't allow him to use even threats of torture. The snake swaying in front of them seemed to be as far as he was willing to go.

Severus pressed a hand to his forehead. He could have done this without much trouble, once. But he was exhausted, and the Legilimency took a toll on his mind every time he had to read someone else uncooperative.

"What did you learn?"

"The same thing I learned from the first five," Severus said, without turning around. He could hear the scrape of scales as Potter either moved his hand along the snake's back or commanded it to slither aside. He didn't care which it was, right now. "That they are not Wizengamot members themselves, but related. They are afraid that they might lose their wealth and privileges if you investigated too closely into their connections to the Ministry under the Dark Lord. Some of them are also afraid that you might become a political power later, if you aren't one now. They wanted you stopped, and they thought the best way to do that was taking us."

"Surprised they didn't grab Ron and Hermione, too," Potter said. He stepped up beside Severus, his face still and his eyes wide as he looked at the malefactors. It reminded Severus of the way he had looked at the ashes of the Dark Lord.

Severus grimaced, rubbed his arm where the bond mark was throbbing slightly, and said, "They are lazy and uncoordinated, and they were desperate. They took us because we were closer and more convenient to them, since we were captive in cells already." He cast a harsh look at Potter, who had the grace to look embarrassed. "They also know more about Lordship bonds, and give them more credit, than you do. They thought there was no way you could fight back once they had your vassals."

A sneer worked its way across Potter's face, and he lifted his boot as if he would prod the nearest wizard in the ribs. Then he pulled it back. "But I did," he said, and if it was too soft for the ears of the person it was superficially intended for, Severus understood why he said it.

"How did you find us?" Severus asked, changing the subject. "They were clever about blocking the bond so that our emotions could not send you a message, if nothing else."

For some reason, Potter looked stricken. But he took in a shaky breath and answered, the same way he usually had when Severus called on him in class. "I used the blood of someone related to one of my vassals."

Severus narrowed his eyes. "Weasley is the likeliest guess," he said, "but I should not have thought his blood connection to Draco that strong." He thought that Weasley was also related to the Crabbes through a connection to the Blacks, but that was distant, and he could remember no recent intermarriages with Goyles, Parkinsons, or Princes.

"No," Potter said, his voice so quiet that Severus only realized it was meant to be words a moment later. "It was—it was Lucius."

Severus took a step back from him, despite the pulling warmth in his arm, wet and messy like tears, that urged him closer. "There is no way you could have got his blood, unless you have an ally in the Ministry that you did not inform me of."

Potter shook his head and looked at Severus. _Ah, _Severus thought with an uninvolved part of himself, _that is why the bond was wet. His eyes look so. _"It turns out that my mother was descended from a Squib who was born into a pure-blood family called the Heltons. They have this blood-ghost thing hanging around that has a grudge against the Malfoys. It already attacked Draco. I convinced—Lucius to take Draco's place, and give himself to the ghost in exchange for giving me some blood so I could track Draco down."

For a moment, Severus stood there in the midst of a long fall. Then he shook his head and snapped, "Then you have the most accommodating blood-ghost I ever heard of."

"He wasn't fucking accommodating!" Potter stepped towards him, and the snake at his side, the snake _Severus _had conjured, reared its head back and hissed. Severus rolled his eyes. Of course everyone had to take Potter's side, including his own conjured animals. "I had to argue and argue with him to get him to take the message to Lucius and come back with Lucius's blood."

Severus shook his head. "Blood-ghosts manifest only rarely, Potter. If they complete their task, they'll fade, but they aren't all that strong. If they were, they could fulfill more than one task. In this case, it sounds like he's chosen Draco as his victim, and he must have expended a lot of strength carrying that vial of blood back to you. What makes you think that he would have changed his mind and chosen to slaughter Lucius simply because you asked him to?"

"Because that was the bargain," Potter said. He was beginning to look confused, not that _that _was new, Severus thought. He moved his right arm, and Severus noticed for the first time the blood smeared over the shield mark. A crude but effective technique, he thought, and wondered if Potter had had to think before he employed it, or hit on it the first time by sheer luck. "He wouldn't have brought me the blood if he hadn't accepted it. He would have just sat there—floated there, I don't know—and attacked Draco when he came back."

"Blood-ghosts cannot change their nature," Severus said.

Potter gasped and stared at him. "He did say that," he admitted.

"Of course he did," said Severus. "Blood-ghosts are not usually deceptive to the members of the families they serve." His mind wandered for a second, distracted by the news that Lily had pure-blood descent, but he folded the thought away to consider for later. The name Helton was not familiar to him, which made it less distracting. "He was trying to warn you. What was his task, specifically?"

"To kill the last member of the family line living," Potter said. "He said he didn't do anything to help me against Lucius before because Draco was alive, so killing Lucius wouldn't do anything to stop the Malfoys, and his center of power is the Ministry holding cells and he can't move far away from them. But then he said that he could accept Lucius as a substitute for Draco…" Harry's voice trailed off.

"The same objection would still apply," Severus said, and didn't try to hold back his sneer this time, especially because the shield mark had stopped pulsing. "If Draco is alive, he can sire children. No, Mr. Potter. I think it likely that Lucius is still alive, and the blood-ghost told him something different, perhaps simply that you needed the blood to bring Draco back. Once Draco returns to the holding cells, the blood-ghost has his preferred victim in reach, and can slaughter him there."

"What did you do to my father?"

Severus sighed. Of course Draco would have started listening at the worst point possible in the conversation.

Potter turned around to face Draco, though. "I thought I was sacrificing his life so that you could live and I could find you," he said. "And you could live after that, because the ghost wouldn't be hunting you. I'm sorry, but I would do it again."

Severus slapped his hand over his eyes. Neither Potter nor Draco, of the rapidly widening eyes and harsh breathing, seemed to notice, but he did, and that was the important thing.

_And sometimes our Lord is stupid._

* * *

Draco blinked. He had a tingling in his right hand, and in his right arm, and he didn't know why.

Then he realized that his slapping Potter across the face probably had something to do with it.

He had done it without thinking of the bond, without caring, instinctively. He flexed his fingers now, and swallowed. He didn't know what punishment the bond would dole out to him, but he didn't think it would be mild.

Then he realized that Potter was looking at him as though Draco had the right to do that, not even touching his red cheek. And he nodded a little and said, "I made the bargain. I would do the same again. Your father isn't one of my vassals. You are."

"But you had to know that they weren't going to hurt us." Draco's throat felt choked, but his voice came out in spite of that, like a river forcing its way around a dam. "They took us and kept us calm, and they bound us, but they didn't torture us."

"I had no idea what they intended to do," Potter said tiredly. Now he reached up and massaged Draco's handprint, but as if he wanted to go to sleep, rather than as if it hurt. "I only knew they blocked the bond and I couldn't feel or see you in any normal way. Figuring out how to come to you and how to get a vision of you were accidents. Right now, they weren't torturing you. But we know they didn't have much of a plan and just did the first thing that came into their heads." He looked over at the wizards cowering against the far wall of the cellar. "Torture might have been next, when they realized that I wouldn't do what they wanted."

"You would have had to, if they had your vassals." Draco said. He was still lightheaded at the thought of something happening to his father, but the words spilled out without much effort or prompting. "Of course you would have. That was what they were counting on, wasn't it?"

Potter narrowed his eyes further. "It's what they intended. It doesn't mean that's what would have happened."

Draco shook his head violently and wrenched the conversation back on track, which was harder than he thought it would be with the image of his father bleeding to death in the back of his brain. "But they had us, and we were _safe. _You didn't need to make that stupid bargain. You could have waited."

"No, I couldn't." Potter stood very tall, and his left hand came over to clutch his right arm as though his shield mark was punishing _him_ for some reason. "They could have turned violent at any time, I told you. I needed a way to find you right away."

Professor Snape delicately cleared his throat. Draco turned towards him, wondering if he could change the world in some way so that his father would still be alive.

"You could indeed have waited," Professor Snape said. "I could feel the bond in my mind. Their Calming Charms did not have as much effect on the mind of a Legilimens. Perhaps I would have been able to send you a message by touching the bond."

Potter shrugged. "I had no way of knowing that. I didn't feel you, you know. None of you. Whatever they did to block the bond, it could be permanent."

Draco opened his mouth to ask about his father again, but Professor Snape glanced around at the walls and door of the cellar they stood in and shook his head. "Rather, I think, a property of the place they chose to put us in."

Potter opened his mouth, and no doubt he would ask some other useless and absurd question about the place and what they were supposed to do next. Draco cut in. "You _could have waited,_" he said. "You didn't know Professor Snape might be able to find you, but you _could _have. You didn't need to sacrifice my father."

"I thought at the time I did," Potter said, looking straight at Draco and so wide-eyed that Draco didn't think what did come out of his mouth next actually would. "I'm sorry."

This time, Draco tried to punch him, and he was fully conscious of what he was doing, and he didn't care about the bond and the shield mark and the way they might punish him. He wanted Potter _dead _for that kind of remark. If he was sorry and he'd cared about Draco's father in the first place, he wouldn't have done this.

Potter avoided the punch, though, and stepped back behind the black snake that Professor Snape had conjured as he spoke. "Stop it, Draco! I did what I thought was best, and it turned out to be the wrong thing to do. Maybe. I could have found you without it. Maybe. But I _didn't know that at the time. _And I would do anything to keep you safe."

"Sacrifice our families?" Draco could feel eyes on his back, and knew Pansy and Blaise were watching this, too. Well, good. Maybe they ought to think about it and wonder whether their families were next.

"Yes."

"Yourself?" Draco tried to figure out some way past the snake, but it was huge, and he had had a sharp lesson in underestimating them when he was around Nagini. He tried to calm down. Maybe Potter would come in punching distance again if Draco sounded less like he cared.

Potter smiled slightly. "How is that different from what I did in the Forbidden Forest?"

Since Draco still didn't know the full story of what he'd done in the Forbidden Forest, he ignored that. "Your friends?"

Potter sucked the back of his teeth, making a disgusting sound, and then shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. That's the tricky one, because I've known them so much longer and they've been part of my life so much longer."

Draco decided he didn't care about looking calm anymore, because Potter had just admitted that he didn't give a fuck about Draco's parents. "Fuck you," he hissed, and had the satisfaction of seeing Potter start. At least he knew Malfoys didn't often use that kind of language. "I'm not going to sit by and see my parents offered up on an altar every time you feel the need to rescue me."

"I'll do whatever I have to to save you." Potter's eyes had gone flat and cold, in a way that Draco wouldn't have thought they could. "And your parents would have done anything to save you. I don't see how it's different." He reached down and roughly massaged the snake's head, making it hiss at him in a way that sounded irritated. Draco hoped it was. He hoped that the damn snake would turn around and _bite _Potter. "And you heard Snape—Professor Snape. I don't think your father is dead. The blood-ghost has decided on you as its victim. It probably helped me so that you would come back."

"It could still have hurt him." Draco's throat seemed to ease a little, but he still found it hard as he envisioned his father sitting in darkness and bleeding from a wound. Of course the Aurors wouldn't help him treat it. They wouldn't _care. _"And in the meantime, you act as though it doesn't matter what he did to himself, as long as you get me back."

"Get all of you back." Potter looked around at Pansy and Blaise, hesitating a minute over Greg. Since he was asleep, Draco could understand why, but he didn't want to understand, and vowed to tell Greg about how Potter had hesitated later when he woke up. Potter looked at Snape last, and nodded at Snape as if he was the one Potter was closest to. "I think it's the bond affecting me, but I don't care. I don't want to feel that frantic and that afraid when I know anyone close to me is in danger. So I came to you."

Draco shut his eyes. He no longer thought the Lordship bond was such a great thing, such a protective thing, not if it might cost him his family without him even knowing it.

Which made no sense, because shouldn't the Lordship bond have prevented such thoughts if it didn't want him to think them?

Draco shook that thought away. "My father asked you for protection," he said.

"A bloody lot I've been able to do so far," Potter said. He was standing straighter, and for some reason, had exchanged glances with Snape. Draco wanted to know why, but Potter bulled straight on, without giving anyone the chance to ask questions. "And that's not the same as being a formally bonded vassal. You _know _it's not.

"And you heard what Snape said about the blood-ghost and how literal it is. It pretended to agree with me, but it's after you, not your father. It did this to satisfy _itself, _so it could have you back, and kill you. So your father's still alive, and maybe hurt, but not dying. So everything's all right, and will you _shut up and listen_?"

He'd probably yelled those last words because Draco was shaking his head frantically. Draco couldn't bring himself to care. The shield mark on his arm still didn't burn, and that made it easier to say, "But you wouldn't have cared if he died, and you said that."

He turned away and sat down, lowering his head. Snape started talking again, but Draco didn't listen. He buried himself in a private world that had first enveloped him when he stared at the Dark Mark smoldering on his arm and heard the Dark Lord pronounce his task.

_The only ones I can trust are my family. No one else gives a shit about us._

* * *

Harry stared at Draco's turned back for a long time. Even knowing that Lucius was alive didn't seem to have reassured him.

_Of course not. And you know why._

His shield mark was burning. Harry whipped away and faced Snape, who was in the middle of a long sentence Harry hadn't heard the beginning of.

"—transport them back to the Ministry. None of the ones I have mind-read know why we are here, in particular. They were told by someone else to come here, and that in this place, they should be safe from pursuit or interference."

Harry bit his lip. "You think the Ministry will accept that? A bunch of prisoners bringing in a bunch of prisoners?"

Snape shrugged. His face was dark, his eyes glittering and focused on Harry as though Harry really was the center of his existence. "You are the one who chose to play this game by going to the Ministry and through legal channels," he said quietly. "You are the one who must continue to play it." He paused delicately. "Unless the rules have changed?"

Harry shook his head. He still had Lucius and Narcissa locked up in the Ministry, and Lewis Boot. Although they weren't his vassals, they were people he had some kind of interest in.

And these people were connected to the Wizengamot. As much as he hated it, they had to go back to the Ministry to find answers.

"Come, then." Snape leaned close to Harry. "But I have something to say to you before we leave."

Harry nodded and went apart with him. He could hear the murmur of voices as Draco spoke to Zabini and Parkinson, and winced. Clear, searing bands of emotion shot across his shield mark, as though someone was burning in the lesson in separate places, so he would never be so stupid again.

"You made a mistake."

Harry threw up his hands. "I didn't know there was another way to find you! I did what I thought I had to do."

"I mean, in making your thoughts transparent to Draco, that his father was just a tool to save him."

Harry paused and sighed. "Yeah, I think I did." He wasn't willing to turn around and say that he would never ask someone else to make a sacrifice for his vassals, though, because that wasn't true. He would rather anger them than lie to them. He supposed that didn't make him diplomatic, but he wanted to be an honest Lord first.

"You must learn to hold your tongue," Snape murmured. He sounded as though he was reading from a book on the duties and training of Lords. For a moment, Harry wished there was one, instead of the mishmash of expectation and tradition that fate had handed him. "You must learn to let some of what your vassals say pass unchallenged and unquestioned. Then do what you must for the good of the whole."

Harry jerked his head back. He'd made a promise to himself, and here Snape was asking him to break it. "So I should lie to them?"

"By omission," Snape said, and didn't look away from him. Harry lowered his eyes, because he didn't really want Snape reading his mind right now. It was easy to remember he had hated the man, when he talked like this. "They are generally accounted less objectionable than lies of commission."

"Think those people include Draco?" Harry muttered.

Snape scowled at him; Harry knew it without even raising his eyes. He had learned to read _those _silences when he was a student at Hogwarts. "It does not matter what one vassal thinks. You must learn what all five of us think."

Harry did look up at that, because _Snape _urging him to treat Snape's own desires as less important than Harry's own was weird. "But you're all individuals. How can I treat you just like one of a group? Parkinson might want something you hate, and Draco might want something I can't give him but I can't just ignore, and Zabini wants to leave altogether."

Snape gave him another sharp look. "You will have to learn how to balance your desire to give all of us free will and what the Lordship binds you to. It is called being an adult."

Harry scowled. So Snape had no secret key, and it was the same thing everyone had been telling him all along.

"Let's get this bunch to the Ministry," he said, nodding to the wizards slumped along the wall and still staring in fear at the snake. "We can figure out what to do once we get there."

_I'm always going to be better with direct action than with words._

* * *

Blaise ducked his head. Let Pansy and Malfoy think he was nodding in response to their conversation, which in fact had gone so fast and so angrily that he couldn't keep up with most of the words.

In reality, he was watching Potter, and he didn't want his _Lord _to see his expression. He would have worried about Potter feeling his emotions through the bond, but there was no sign of that, and Blaise had been feeling them at least since Potter got here.

There was dissension among them, now. Pansy might still follow Potter, Snape might think it was the best solution, and Goyle didn't count, but Malfoy was turning away. Anyone who tried to hurt his family was someone he might fear, but never count as an ally. Blaise knew that from the hints about the Dark Lord he'd dropped over the last year.

That meant _Blaise _had an ally, and with that, he might break free of Potter, or even bring him down.

Blaise had to smile. _Thanks for the free gift, Potter._


	19. Bad Mistakes

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nineteen—Bad Mistakes_

"Potter!"

Harry would have to become used to people shrieking that at him, he supposed. This time, it was at least someone from the Ministry, not one of his vassals. Harry reckoned that anyone—he didn't know from his robes if the man was an Auror or a Hit Wizard or someone to do with the Wizengamot or another department altogether—would shriek when they noticed a prisoner marching up to the lifts with another bunch of prisoners and tied people floating behind them.

The man started to raise his wand, but Harry got in his way with the one he had stolen from the captor he'd dueled, and the man stopped. Harry smiled. He didn't know if it was a nice smile, but it made the Ministry man give him a look of fearful respect, and at the moment, that was more important.

"Listen," Harry said. "These people took my vassals." He nodded to the tied Wizengamot flunkies. "They planned to hold them hostage and force me to cooperate with them, politically. I went to them instead, freed my vassals, and took _them _hostage instead. I'm prepared to cooperate with the Ministry, but I want Auror Stone and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley to conduct the negotiations. I don't trust anyone else right now."

The Ministry man backed up a step, and then bowed. He had large black eyebrows that overshadowed his face, but his voice was much more respectful as he said, "Of course, Lord Potter." Harry didn't let himself grimace at the title, partially because he knew it would be a bad idea, but more because he could feel Snape watching him. "My name is Hans Checkerworth. I work for the Wizengamot as a clerk. I hope that's acceptable."

"It is," Harry said shortly, "as long as you go get the people I talked about."

Another bow, and then Checkerworth scurried away to the lifts. Harry turned and stared at the crowd that had gathered around them. There were a few Aurors in it, but a lot more ordinary Ministry people, like the ones that he and Ron had impersonated when they broke into the Ministry.

"What are you looking at?" Harry asked them, and they broke away, murmuring, and made for the lifts or the fireplaces or wherever they'd been going. Harry sighed and raked a hand down his face.

Snape had done his best with Legilimency, but it was obvious that none of the wizards who had taken Harry's Slytherins knew who owned the cellar where they'd been. Only that it would block the Lordship bond to be there, and it was _someone's _good idea. And now they would have to deal with the Ministry, which would probably be more upset about Harry escaping than a potential hostage situation. And to make it worse, the wizard Harry had dueled, and most of the rest, were related to the Wizengamot somehow.

It was a mess.

"You've made a mistake."

That was Draco. Of course it was. Harry stared at the far wall and asked, "And what is that?"

Draco seized his arm and turned him around. Harry went, noting with annoyance that Draco was a little taller than he was, at least standing on this level. And Harry's shield mark burned and throbbed with Draco's emotions. The effect had begun to come back even when they were still in that cellar, since Harry was close to his vassals again, but it hadn't been as strong there as it was here.

"Deciding that you could give up my father in exchange for me," Draco hissed. "I'm not going to forget that you were willing to kill him."

Harry looked at him and said the first thing that came into his mind. He was so _tired. _"And you don't think that he would have sacrificed himself for you? Would you be upset if he came to rescue you and died fighting?"

Draco recoiled. "Of _course._ Maybe you don't understand it since you don't have parents, Potter, but some of us actually _value _our families!"

Harry hissed again and turned away. He had asked the question in the wrong way. Of course he had. As Draco would say, it was inevitable. He had no connection to his vassals outside the bond and maybe the fact that Snape was willing to work with Harry and soothe things along a little bit. But he was responsible for them legally and morally, and maybe financially as well.

He stood there in what seemed like freezing silence for a long time. At least Draco didn't try to touch him again, but he hovered nearby, and Harry could feel his gaze digging into the side of Harry's face, like probing needles of ice. Harry did his best to ignore it. It didn't really work.

"Lord Potter."

That was Auror Stone, striding towards them like an animated boulder, but at the moment, Harry couldn't think of one that was more welcome. His friends weren't here yet, but Stone would at least listen to his story. He held up his arm, and saw Stone's eyes focus on the traces of blood that clung to the shield mark, before moving to the bound and floating wizards behind him.

"They were people who kidnapped my vassals and took them to a cellar," Harry said simply. "One that blocked the Lordship bond. Most of them are related to the Wizengamot members. I don't know if I can get them in trouble, but I formally _request _that they at least be detained for a while." He glanced over his shoulder, and the scowls on the faces he could see clearly made him speak again. "I don't want political power, you bastards. I just want a normal life. You're part of the reason I probably won't be able to have one."

"Lord Potter." Stone's voice didn't sound more formal than usual, but it did sound more commanding. Harry turned his head back. She extended her hand. "I need the wand that you took, please."

"_My _wand!" the wizard Harry had dueled called out.

Stone turned her chill gaze on him, and the man abruptly flinched and tried to hide behind several others, which was kind of impossible when they were floating all in a line like that. Stone only nodded. "I'll remember that you said that, sir," she said, and again turned back and faced Harry in expectant silence.

Harry held the wand over her hand. "I want your word that you'll see these wizards tried for what they did," he said.

Snape rustled forwards and bent down near Harry, ignoring the way Stone tensed at him. "And moved to a different place," Snape said, voice soft but harsh. "The holding cells are not safe for us, not if these wizards, who were not even particularly well-organized, could break in and just take us out of them." His eyes flickered to Draco.

Harry, not missing the message about the blood-ghost, turned to Stone. "Yes. Can you do that? Is there any other place that can hold us?"

Stone hesitated. Then she said, "The only other official place that Ministry prisoners can be held is Azkaban, and you led me to believe that was detrimental, for several reasons."

"Of _course _it is," Harry said, forcefully. "What I mean is, will you take my formal word not to rebel or escape again, unless my vassals are in danger, and let us go somewhere else?'

"I would take it," Stone said, lifting her head to look him in the eyes. "It does not mean that the rest of the Ministry would."

Harry grimaced. He only had one choice that he could see. Maybe someone else could come up with something else. Someone who wasn't tired and battered and hated by half the wizarding world and two of his own vassals.

"What about an Unbreakable Vow?" he asked.

"Or a Lord's Oath."

Harry blinked and turned his head. Parkinson had spoken. She returned his look primly, her hands folded in front of her. She looked enough like Hermione when she got into a certain mood that Harry relaxed in spite of himself and asked her, "What's a Lord's Oath?"

"Something I was trying to remember earlier and couldn't," Parkinson said. She looked between Harry and Stone as though waiting for one of them to stop her, but when neither did, she shrugged and continued speaking. "But I had a lot of time to think in the cell, before they came and took us. A Lord can swear an oath that's on their mark, basically, or whatever other thing they've done to claim their vassals. If they break it, the mark starts burning them, and their Lordship weakens. They wouldn't be able to sense their vassals as well, and the vassals would have more freedom from them."

"I'll do it," Harry said instantly.

"The quickness of your response and your feelings about the bond do not let lead me to the feeling that you would keep your word, Lord Potter," said Stone quietly.

Harry winced. _Right_. "Listen," he said, and faced her again. "I don't want to break it. I mean—I want my vassals free from this, but with no negative consequences to anyone. And this sounds like it would have negative consequences to me, at least."

"So could breaking out of your cell and going after them the way you did," Stone said.

Harry nodded. "I know. But I would still rather give you this Lord's Oath and wait for my friends to find some way to get me free of the bond than break it. I told you, with the exception that someone takes my vassals again. Then I have to able to leave the place where I'd be staying and go after them."

Stone stood there and looked into his eyes so intently that Harry winced a little. But her face lived up to her name, and Harry couldn't tell whether she would agree until she inclined her head and said, "I presume that you have a property in mind that could function as a place for you to stay?"

Harry nodded. "Sirius Black made me his heir. I have a house that used to belong to the Blacks. Would that do?"

"How secure is it?"

"In the middle of Muggle London," Harry said, and saw the way Stone looked at his vassals. Yes, that probably made sense to her, he thought. With the exception of Snape and maybe Zabini, he doubted that most of the others would know how to walk around in Muggle London or run away very well. "It has protections on it because it used to be the headquarters for Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix. Most people wouldn't be able to break in."

"I would have said the same thing about the Ministry holding cells," Stone said, switching her stare back to him.

"Yes, but we neglected to think about how much the Wizengamot would hate me for disrupting their lives," Harry said. "So I think it's best if we stay in some place that's out of their direct control." He held his hand up, because Stone's forehead had started to furrow. "I know that you're probably worried about them breaking out, too, but that's what my word is for. I'm going to take care of them and make sure that they don't run away, either."

_Oh, really? _Harry didn't hear the words in his head, but he might as well have, because they, or words very like them, were burning up his mind from Zabini's direction.

Did _Zabini _not realize that Harry could feel what he was feeling now, and had for a while even in the cellar? Well, it didn't matter. Harry had dealt with his rebellion once before, and now he would deal with it again. And he would deal with Draco hating him, and Snape resenting him, and Goyle when he woke up, and Parkinson…

Parkinson was coming forwards, looking back and forth between him and Stone. "I know the ceremony of the Lord's Oath," she offered quietly. "I can help you perform it."

"There's a ceremony?" Harry asked. But of course there was. There was _always _a fucking ceremony, sometimes something that he did without meaning to, like coming up with the bond and the shield mark in the first place.

Parkinson smiled at him as if hearing his thoughts. "Yes. Exactly. That means that you're bound to the mark by a vow to someone else. Otherwise, the mark only constitutes a vow between you and your vassals."

"It would have been useful if you could have remembered this earlier," Harry muttered. "Hermione was searching through all these books for material on the Lordship bond, and she couldn't come up with anything like this."

"Shock and fear and the ending of a war gave me other things to think about, so sorry," Parkinson snapped back, winding a curl of hair around her finger. "But I remember now. And I don't know how useful it would be in the long term, but it can be useful _now_."

Harry turned back to Stone. "Would you accept the Lord's Oath from me?"

"I am only one Auror," Stone said. "Not even the one with the most seniority in the Department."

Harry smiled. "But you told me a bunch of other Aurors had been compromised by serving Voldemort and you were still straightening things out and even relying on trainees. So I think you're higher up now than you are most of the time."

"And one person can accept the Lord's Oath," Parkinson added, her voice strong and confident when Harry looked at her. "As long as it's done in the right way, then the consequences for breaking the vow will be the same for the Lord. And it doesn't matter who he swore to, or why."

Stone considered this for only a few seconds before she turned to Parkinson. "I have heard of this ceremony, but not been through it. What do you think we need to do?" She was already drawing her wand.

Parkinson hesitated, as though she was surprised to have so many people relying on her all at once. Harry held her eyes and smiled as encouragingly as he could. He didn't know if he could send support to her through the bond and the mark, but there was always this old-fashioned way.

* * *

_You've read all about it. You would have mentioned it before now if you'd been with Potter, or had more time to concentrate._

Pansy knew that backing down would probably make Potter distrust her more than ever, and she didn't want that to happen. Ultimately, he would be her shadow and her support in her political decisions. She had to have a basic level of trust from him.

And that meant showing more confidence where she was faltering. She knew the truth better than Blaise and Draco, who planned and plotted and raged and thought someone had to attend to them. She knew she was weak right now, but she would grow.

One way of growing was being able to provide services to people that they needed. To Potter, she said, "Kneel."

He did it immediately, never taking his eyes off her. Pansy folded her arms so that her right one wouldn't tremble. It was _tingling, _and she didn't know whether that was a positive thing or not, but she didn't want it to throw her off.

"Now you," she said to Stone. "Kneel opposite him."

Stone reminded Pansy of her mother, the way she stared, but she did it. Pansy walked behind her. "Now close your eyes, my lord," she told Potter. The title felt less uncomfortable on her lips when she reminded herself that it was part of a political objective. "Blindness shows trust. Voluntary blindness, at least. Now, Auror Stone, rest your wand on his hands , and then put your hands on either side of his head. Clasp your hands in front of you, my lord. No, as if you were holding the shaft of a broom. One atop the other."

The ritual was coming back the more she thought about it. It was a simple ceremony, really. Not one she'd sought to memorize, but one that was close enough to others she'd had to memorize that it was easy to keep in mind and realize what must come next.

"What do we do now?"

Pansy started. Stone was impatient even if Potter wasn't and the mark on her arm had settled down to a steady humming, it seemed. Pansy concealed a sigh. "You keep your hands in place and he keeps his in place, and you swear the vow, my lord. Make sure that you say what you're going to do and where we're going to stay and the one exception you mentioned before. And you have to end it by saying that you swear on your magic and your Lordship."

"That seems simple enough," Potter muttered.

"Do I get no say in this vow?" Stone's voice was patient, but heavy.

Pansy shook her head, then realized that Stone was being absolutely obedient and wouldn't look away from Potter, so she hadn't seen what Pansy had done. Pansy sighed and said, "No. You're the one who receives the Lord's Oath. If there's something unacceptable in what he proposed, you have to say it, now, before he makes the vow."

Stone just kept kneeling there, silent. Pansy nodded and turned to Potter, who kept his eyes closed. "All right. Go ahead and make it now, my lord."

"I promise that my vassals and I will stay in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, and we won't leave it unless the Ministry brings us to _legal _trial or someone kidnaps my vassals, or the house is in danger of being destroyed," Potter said. "I swear it on my magic and my Lordship."

The flare of the vow around him and Stone took place much faster than the flames of an Unbreakable Vow did, which Pansy had only seen once. This was a brilliant white infinity symbol, flaring like magnesium dropped in water, and it wove around both Potter and Stone, with one of them in each of its loops. It faded while Pansy was still trying to determine if it was connected to their hands, or to the mark on Potter's arm or not.

"Excellent," Stone said, a little breathily, opening her eyes. "I trust that you will do your best to keep this vow, Lord Potter."

"I would have kept the last one," Potter said breathlessly, in turn, opening his eyes, "if a bunch of idiots hadn't come and kidnapped my vassals."

Stone eyed him as though she doubted the truth of that, but finally nodded and stood up. "Good. Then you and your vassals can leave for Grimmauld Place as soon as your friends come to escort you, correct? Checkerworth told me that he had to find them as well as me."

"Harry!"

Granger and Weasley were coming. Pansy faded back to stand behind Potter. She didn't get along well with either one of them, and given the expressions on their faces, they were worried about Potter and Pansy didn't want to get in their way.

Then Draco stepped forwards. Pansy tried to catch his arm. Going to the Black house, no matter how run-down, had to be better than staying in the holding cells, and if Professor Snape was right about a ghost trying to kill Draco here, they would be safer there, too.

"What about my parents, Potter?" Draco asked loudly, avoiding Pansy's hand. "They were supposed to be protected. Aren't you going to petition for them to be taken out, too, and follow us? You _have _to."

Potter stood up and turned to him with eyes that had gone soft with sorrow. Pansy would have liked to smack him on the forehead, right over the lightning bolt scar. You couldn't be soft with Draco. He mistook it for stupidity. The only professor he had really respected, other than Snape, had been McGonagall, because she had never showed him that kind of soppiness that the others tended to.

"I made the vow already," Potter said. "They're not my vassals. They can't come with us."

Draco nodded, and then went on nodding when he should have stopped, as though his head had become loose. Again Pansy tried to get to him, and again he avoided her without looking. "Then your word means nothing. When you said they would have protection, and they would receive a fair trial?"

Potter sighed and turned to Stone. "Would you check on Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Malfoy, Auror Stone? I used some of Mr. Malfoy's blood to get to my vassals this time, because I didn't know any other way. He may be wounded. And please step up the guard on them. Someone might try for them next."

Stone's eyebrows went up in a way that made Pansy certain she would have liked to hear the story of how Potter had got Mr. Malfoy's blood, but she bobbed her head. "Yes, Lord Potter. I had too much trust in the faithfulness of Aurors before this. I am going to find out who let the people who kidnapped you pass. And we'll interrogate those who did, be certain." Her eyes wandered to the people floating bound behind Potter.

"I am related to the Greengrasses!" yelled a tall witch who Pansy had seen when they came to her holding cell to take her. "You can't do this!"

"Really?" Auror Stone asked mildly. "Well, you can't kidnap people without consequences, either. Let's give you the chance to tell your stories, and we'll see if you have a good excuse for _that_."

"And my parents?" Draco demanded, looking at both Potter and Auror Stone as if he wasn't sure which one would provide the better target for him.

"I'll check on them," Auror Stone said calmly. "I can heal some wounds. I'll take care of Mr. Malfoy's wounds myself, if he has them, and any that Mrs. Malfoy has. And you have my word as an Auror to step up the guard on them. No one's ready to go to trial yet. It'll take longer."

"And that's _all_?" Draco spun to Potter. "That's all I get?"

"That's all." Potter's eyes were a million years old. "I'm doing the most I can by protecting you, and the vow wouldn't apply to people who aren't vassals."

"God, Harry, let's get you to Grimmauld Place," Weasley muttered. Granger threw her arms around Potter briefly, then started making a little speech that Pansy didn't pay attention to. It wasn't like she would be allowed to Apparate on her own anyway.

She watched Draco and Blaise, instead. Draco was fuming, and the harder he did it, the longer Blaise smiled.

Pansy didn't really like the Lordship and what it made her do, either. She would get rid of it if there was a chance. But she distrusted the way that Draco and Blaise would go about getting rid of it. Draco's loyalty to his family was blind; he would make any promises, and sod anyone who got in the way.

And Blaise probably thought all he had to do was run away, and that would weaken the Lordship bond.

_Well, I'll do what I can to foil you._

As Pansy turned back to Potter and Granger, she saw Professor Snape watching her. She didn't think it was his imagination, although the move was subtle to escape Draco's and Blaise's eyes, when he inclined his head to her.

_At least I'll have help._


	20. Grimmauld Place

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty—Grimmauld Place_

"Hello?"

Harry called into the depths of the dusty house, and ended up grimacing and shaking his head. Kreacher wasn't here, he thought. Probably still at Hogwarts.

His shield mark burned, briefly, and then he heard Parkinson's disgusted shriek behind him as she stepped into a cobweb. Or maybe just a pile of dust, Harry discovered, as he turned around. The cobweb seemed to have been on her _face, _from the way she was pawing at it.

"My house-elf isn't here," Harry said. "I suppose that means we have to do what we can to make the house livable." He hesitated and glanced at Snape. He knew that Snape had seized a wand from the wizards they'd fought, too, and although Harry had given the one he'd taken back to Auror Stone, he hadn't heard Snape say anything.

Snape inclined his head, but said nothing now, either. Harry nodded once and turned around, walking to the kitchen. He ignored the shrieking from Walburga's portrait, but heard it cut off when Draco said something.

_Well, good. Maybe now that she's got a cousin here, she'll stop screaming at us all the time. _And most of them, minus him, weren't blood traitors anyway. Unless Snape counted.

Harry sighed and slapped his own forehead to try and cure his rambling thoughts. He knew what part of the problem was. He was bloody _tired, _that was what it was. He wanted to lie down and sleep for a year. That sounded like a brilliant idea, actually, the more he considered it. When he woke up, all of the trials would be done, one way or the other.

The shield mark gave a chiding little sting, and Harry groaned and nodded again. No, he couldn't lie back and just give in like that. He was financially and legally responsible for his Slytherins, at least for some of what they would suffer, and he had to be there.

"Potter?"

That was Snape, slipping into the kitchen. Harry concentrated a little, and deduced that Draco was still in the front hall, talking to Walburga's portrait. Parkinson and Zabini had spread out, exploring rooms on the first floor. Goyle, whom their Auror escort had carried here, was asleep on the couch.

"I am surprised that you did not ask your friends to stay." Snape leaned against the table and folded his arms.

"I wanted to," Harry said frankly. And Ron and Hermione had wanted to stay, too. But the Aurors who'd brought them had explained that the Lord's Oath had no provision for them, and from the insults that had _already _started flying between Ron and Draco, Harry could think of no excuse good enough for them to stay. "In the end, though, it was more trouble than it was worth."

Snape went on watching him. Harry watched him back. He was no longer so tired that it felt as if every thought was veering off into its own separate path, but it was true that he still felt as though his head was reeling and he would fall off the edge of the world any second. At least he thought he could concentrate on what Snape wanted from him.

_Whatever that is._

"You know that Draco will most likely try to do something stupid soon," Snape said quietly. "And Zabini, as well."

Harry made a swishing motion with one hand. He didn't really know what he meant it to mean, and from the sharp glare Snape gave him, _he _didn't, either. Harry dropped his arm back to his side and shook his head. "I know. In Draco's case, I can understand. He thinks that I did something wrong by not letting him see his parents, and asking his father to make that sacrifice. But I don't understand Zabini. He got _hurt, _once. Does he think that he can break free again?"

Snape started to open his mouth, but sharply turned his head to the side. Harry felt through the bond, but as far as he could tell, none of his vassals was in danger.

Then he heard the thunderous knocking on the front door.

Harry rolled his eyes and stood abruptly. _Great, more shit to deal with. I hate this shit. Why does someone always come along and interrupt just as I'm about to get some fucking rest? _

He didn't swear aloud, but it was satisfying to repeat the words in his head. He nodded to Snape. "Stay behind me," he said, and moved towards the door.

"Who is the one who has a wand?" Snape hissed, and the shield mark on Harry's arm snapped and stung at him. Harry rolled his eyes again and kept walking.

"If they've come to kidnap someone again, you can defend me," he said, noting that Parkinson was peering back around the corner as Harry went to the door. "But they might at least hesitate when they see me, whereas they won't give a shit about you."

The wordless growl Snape gave was satisfying, too, in its own way—far more so than who Harry found when he opened the door. For a second, he stared, and then he smoothed his face into its most neutral lines and gave a little bow.

"Healer Kislik," he said, using one foot to nudge Snape hard on the ankle. "I'm afraid that I'm going to need an oath from you that you won't try to hurt my vassals or break the bond before I let you come in."

* * *

Severus studied the woman on the doorstep with hooded eyes. She wore plain robes now, without the green or the symbol of crossed bone and wand that had marked her as a Healer at Hogwarts. She had small bells braided into her hair as well, made of copper and bronze, which tinkled when she turned her head. Severus did not know their significance. He wondered if Potter had noticed them.

_Of course not, _he decided when he looked down. Potter was close to dead on his feet, having performed at least three powerful magical feats that day—whatever he had done with Lucius's blood to come and rescue them in the cellar, the contest with the Wizengamot's flunkies, and the Lord's Oath he had made to Stone. Now was not the time for him to be speaking to someone like this Healer, who had bewildered him once.

"You are asking me to betray other oaths I have made, oaths that mean a great deal to me." Kislik's voice was low and precise, and she watched Potter, considering every moment of weakness and what it meant. "I can deliver the message I have for you from the doorstep, if you will not let me in."

Potter shook his head and stood up a little straighter. "I can't. You need to tell me what you came for, and that'll be it."

Kislik bent towards Potter, the bells rattling in her hair. Severus tightened his hand on his stolen wand. A conquered wand never worked as well for the conqueror as the one that had chosen him, but they usually yielded, and this one was warm and congenial under his touch.

"We will never stop," Kislik whispered. "What you have done is slavery. What you _will _do is slavery. Carving paths in their mind with the Lordship bond and binding them closer to you was never anything but slavery. We will destroy you, if we have to, so that you cannot bond or bind any more of them."

Potter went on blinking at the Healer as if she had stepped out of a dream.

Then he shut the door in her face.

Severus released the wand and rubbed his right arm, only then aware that the shield mark had tightened as though the skin there was scarred. It relaxed as he touched it, and Potter sighed and leaned his forehead against the door.

"Stupid woman," he muttered.

Severus shook his head slightly. He was not _entirely _pleased that he had a Lord with such a simple vocabulary, but he had to remind himself that this was the same young man who had stood in front of the Wizengamot—less than a day ago, yes—and challenged them with arguments they couldn't answer. Potter possessed the capacity and the talent to do what was needed. He simply did not always have the resources.

The Healer knocked again. Potter raised his head, frowning, and glanced around as though he had no idea what to do. Then his face brightened, and he crossed the hallway to the wall, where a small, flat patch shimmered on the paper. Severus had to smirk as he remembered what it was. During the Order's tenure in Grimmauld Place, they had established this as a crossing place of the wards, and one could tighten them or relax them at will by pressing on it.

Potter pressed on it now, and there was the sound of someone staggering back from the door as the wards came into effect and pushed her off the stoop. Potter snorted and folded his arms. "Should have thought of that right after the Aurors left," he muttered.

"You were too tired to think of it," Severus said, only hearing how low his voice had gone when it emerged.

Potter turned to stare at him in surprise. "Since when have _you _been the one to make excuses for me?" he demanded.

"Since I saw how directly your poor performance is tied to your weariness." Severus gripped the boy's arm when he spluttered and pressed his fingers, warningly, into the shield mark. "I think that you need to go to _bed, _Potter. It needs to be in a room a distance from the others, where no one will disturb you."

Potter shrugged wearily. "I can't cast Silencing Charms since I don't have a wand."

"I will cast them," Severus said, and dragged him towards the nearest staircase.

* * *

Draco had stopped talking with his cousin—or was she an aunt?—in the portrait when the knock came, to see how Potter would deal with it. To his disappointment, it wasn't much of a challenge for him. If he had admitted the Healer to the house, the way Draco thought he would with his guilt and fear preying on him, then Draco might have been able to watch something amusing, but he'd shut her out.

And now Professor Snape was bending over _Potter, _as though _Potter _was the one who deserved his anxiety and his kindness. Well, the gruff kindness that Snape sometimes displayed as Head of Slytherin House, anyway. Draco, and all the other Slytherins, knew better than to expect Snape to act like a parent.

But even the hold he used on Potter's arm to drag him towards the staircase wasn't as rough as it could have been.

Draco frowned. He had the impression that Professor Snape had more freedom under the bond than any of the rest of them; at least, Potter seemed to talk to him and ask his permission more to do things instead of just commanding him the way he did everyone else. What would happen if Professor Snape gave in to Potter's idiocy and started acting like a servant towards him? Draco would lose the opportunity to watch some of the challenges that could entertain him, and if Potter wasn't worn down from fighting Professor Snape, he might never weaken the hold that the bond had over Draco.

"Malfoy."

That was Blaise's voice, coming from the doorway of what looked like a drawing room when Draco turned around. He walked towards it, ignoring, for the moment, the burn of resentment in his stomach. He _should _know exactly what this house looked like, the rooms in it and how many of them there were and what treasures they contained. This house _should _have come to him, as his inheritance, instead of going to bloody _Potter_. He should have been able to do _what he wanted_.

His father shouldn't have had to sacrifice himself.

The shield mark stung a little. Draco rubbed it and ducked in beside Blaise.

Yes, it was a drawing room, although with the paper hanging in strips on the wall and something black, mold or worse, along the floorboards. Draco wrinkled his nose and turned to Blaise. Blaise was sitting casually in the middle of a dark-flowered couch that was either cleaner than it looked or—well, it had to be cleaner than it looked, that was all.

"What do you want?" Draco demanded.

"Come." Blaise patted the spot beside him and gave him a smile that Draco wasn't stupid enough to trust. "Sit."

Draco dragged his way slowly towards Blaise, and ended up sitting down after deciding that, since Professor Snape had a wand, he could just perform a Cleaning Charm on Draco's robes tomorrow. "What do you want?" he repeated, leaning forwards with his hands clasped in front of him. "Don't tell me you have some great master plan to escape Potter again. You know the last time didn't work."

Blaise twitched, but his eyes grew deeper and darker, and he leaned forwards with one hand pressed down on the couch as if crushing his temper. "I have come up with a plan. I'm not going to flee on my own, though. You're right, that didn't work." He waited, but Draco had nothing to say without more of a clue, so Blaise continued. "But I was thinking, if _two _of us rebelled at once…"

Draco stirred in interest despite himself. "What makes you think I have any interest in rebelling against him?"

Blaise looked quietly at him, and then continued when he seemed to have decided that silence wasn't working again. "Your face. Your eyes. Your words about your father. You know that Potter should _pay _for what he did to your father."

"Don't pretend that you care about my family, Zabini." With an effort, Draco kept his eyes bored, his lounging back on the chair smooth and slumped instead of tightly controlled. "You don't give a shit about anyone except yourself."

"But in a case where we could help each other, of course I have to care about my allies," Blaise said in a small, shocked voice, holding his hands up. "My mother taught me that. It's only good politics."

Draco rolled his eyes again, but he had to admit that they might stand more of a chance together than apart. Potter only had five vassals. If two of them rebelled against him, that was almost half. And Pansy had no reason to stand in their way, as long as they could present her with proof that the bond would weaken. Then she could go away and do the precious political work that mattered to her so much.

Maybe they could even convince Greg to join them, if he ever woke up.

But Draco could think of one problem, and he moved his chin in the direction of the staircase it had walked up. "What about Professor Snape?"

"What about him?" Blaise had tensed. Draco knew he had. No one else might have noticed, but he hadn't shared rooms with the boy for seven years without knowing him.

"He's protecting Potter," Draco said, letting his disgust fill his voice. He had thought Professor Snape would stand with them if anyone did. He might not have Draco's family reasons or Blaise's insane desire for freedom, but he couldn't stand Potter. For some reason, though, he seemed to have decided that coddling the idiot was the best way to advance himself in the bond. So much for all his words about wanting to defend his Slytherin students. "You think he's going to stand aside if we try to do something?"

"No." Blaise shivered and rubbed the shield mark on his right arm. "But we can come up with something to get him out of the way."

Draco rolled his eyes and stood. "You do that."

"What do you mean?" Blaise asked sharply, tilting his head back to scowl at Draco. "If we're allies, we have to do things together."

"Yes, but you rebelled once before and failed," Draco said. "I don't want my arm almost burned off by the magic of the bond, thank you."

Blaise's eyes flashed once, and his hand moved towards his right arm before he dropped it back to his side. "That only happened because I tried to kill him," he said. "I know better than that now. We won't confront him directly."

"But we might have to confront _Professor Snape _directly," Draco pointed out. "So. Impress me. Come up with a plan that can take Professor Snape out. You don't have to do it by yourself, but you have to show me that you can think about more than running away. When you have something, we'll put it into motion, and I'll come up with a plan to confront Potter. One thing's for certain, he trusts me more than he'll ever trust you. That's fair, isn't it?"

Blaise's dark face flushed, and he clenched his hands into his lap for a second. But then he nodded. "Fair's fair," he said, ducking his head.

"Good," Draco said, and left the drawing room to make his way to the first floor and choose a bedroom of his own. He didn't think he needed to worry about it being too near Potter's. The charms and wards that would be around Potter's door, because Snape was the only one of them who had a wand, would warn him away, and he would pick one at least several doors down.

He didn't want to be anywhere near the man who had made him and his parents a promise of safety and then betrayed them so effectively.

* * *

_It's going to be up to me to do something about this, isn't it?_

Pansy lay back on the bed in the room she had chosen as her own, and sighed. At least it was relatively free of dust and cobwebs, even if the walls still had smells that her mother would never have allowed in the house and Pansy thought she had caught a glimpse of a doxy giggling behind a curtain before it darted out of the way.

Besides, she had other things to think about than the cleanliness of her surroundings. Like, the stupid way Blaise and Draco were handling themselves.

Pansy groaned and closed her eyes. She didn't _want _to think about them. She didn't want to do anything but lie here and brood.

But Professor Snape had given no sign that he'd overheard their conversation, which left Pansy as the only witness. She'd had to move away smartly when Draco stood up from the couch, but otherwise, they'd talked freely, and Pansy didn't think either one of the fools knew she'd been there.

That infuriated her as much as anything else. They hadn't always been intelligent in the past—witness the utter mess Draco had made of his own sixth year—but they were _supposed _to be. They always went around bragging that they were better than other people, and most of the people in Slytherin House did the same thing. Pansy didn't think arrogance was a bad character trait, but you had to be able to back up your claims, and you had to understand when circumstances changed. If it was better to act _right now_, then you had to do it and not whine about immediate action being for Gryffindors. If it was better to stand down and wait for another time to act, then you also had to grasp that.

Blaise wanted his freedom so badly that he didn't care who heard him, or overheard him. And Draco hadn't listened to Professor Snape's assurances that his father was probably fine. He had decided that Potter had no right to ask someone else to make sacrifices to save his vassals, even though Draco knew more about the Lordship bonds than Potter did and should have anticipated everything that had happened so far. They would do something stupid that would further tighten the restrictions on all of them, and might prevent Pansy from ever being comfortable with the bond.

Because if Potter felt that he had to ride herd on them, he would do it on _all _of them. That was his Gryffindor notion of fairness.

Pansy grimaced and sat up. All right, so she had decided in her righteous anger that Draco and Blaise were wrong and something needed to be done about them. The question was, what should it be?

Professor Snape was busy guarding Potter right now. Potter was exhausted. Greg was still out of the equation. No one else was in the house. Pansy was on her own, without even a wand to protect her.

Then she bit her lip thoughtfully. Without a wand, but she thought she'd seen…

She rummaged in the drawer of the table beside the bed, and finally found a stack of relatively clean parchment and a quill. When she picked up the inkwell locked in the table, gingerly, she ended up exhaling hard in relief. It still had liquid ink in it. It was either charmed or protected by house-elf magic.

She spread the parchment on the table and spent a few minutes practicing flourishing letters and the signature she needed. Then she picked up a clean piece of parchment and wrote,

_If you two dunderheads think that I am unaware of your plans, then you should think again. You will do nothing to jeopardize the bond or Potter, because you will face me if you do. Deciding to split up the task into dealing with me and dealing with Potter will only be the beginning of your downfall._

Pansy considered it for a second, then smiled and signed, _Professor Snape._

She knew the professor's handwriting from seeing it on countless essays over the years. She didn't think it was perfect, but the reference to a specific part of Draco and Blaise's conversation ought to shake them and make them act at least a little more cautiously. And by the time they came up with something else, maybe Potter and Professor Snape would be back in the game.

She stood up, folded the parchment, and went to slide it under Draco's door. He was the less stubborn of the two, at least as far as the bond went. Better to shake him up first. He would also go to share it with Blaise right away, Pansy thought, whereas Blaise might keep it to himself because he was afraid that Draco would back off on helping him if he didn't.

She heard Draco come over to pick up the parchment, and whisked back into her bedroom. Then she locked the door and draped herself on the bed as if asleep. That ought to convince anyone who did manage to look in. Pansy had been fooling her mother that way for years, and her mother had pretty sharp eyes.

She did shake her head a little as she closed her eyes.

_Why do I have to do everything around here? _

Then she snorted lightly to herself.

_Maybe I should think of it as future practice in politics._


	21. A Silent Warning

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-One—A Silent Warning_

Severus shut his eyes and let his body relax. It was typical of him that when he finally got the chance to put down his burden, with Potter safe behind wards and charms and the other Slytherin students escaped whole from the Ministry and the Wizengamot, he could not sleep.

Or perhaps the cause was his dream of Albus the last time he _had _slept, and the way he would rather escape from confronting the man again.

Severus sighed and lowered himself further and further into the darkness. Whether or not his mind slept or ran in circles, he could make sure that his muscles loosened and fell limp, his head rolled back on his neck, his hands no longer tightened in a desperate search for the wand and the potions flasks he needed to feel safe. He had learned the skill long ago, but it had served him best of all in this last year of the war. He needed true rest, craved it, but in its place, this controlled doze would sustain him for a few days.

And a few days was all it had been, since the death of the Dark Lord and the cementing of the bond.

Severus would have shaken his head, but an important rule of the relaxation he followed was that one must not move after control of the body had been yielded. Therefore, Severus let himself shake his head only in the internal sanctuary of his mind.

Had there ever been someone so ill-equipped for the role of Lord as Potter was?

His memory supplied several historical names, mostly from the cautionary stories that his mother had told him when he was young, and he grimaced. Yes, there had been. But most of them had destroyed themselves within a few months when going up against political enemies, and their vassals had made their own way after that, free to live and die.

And there was an even more important distinction. None of them had had Severus Snape for a vassal.

The shield mark on his arm did not burn now, perhaps because Potter and several of the others were asleep and that was the closest to quiescent that the bond could be. But Severus knew it was changing him, knew that he would not care so much for Potter's survival if it was not. And his own desire to die had retreated into the background, an inconvenience now rather than a strategy to carry out immediately.

If he was free…

But he was not. That was the problem. Severus knew many Slytherins planned their lives exclusively around what they wanted, dreaming of what they would do when opponents and obstacles were removed. But Severus had worked his way under constraints for so long that he had begun to fear the _need _of constraints was woven into his soul. This time, it was the Lord bond. Before, it had been the Dark Mark, and the need to be Dumbledore's spy, and the guilt for causing Lily's death.

Severus paused.

Of course he still felt guilty about Lily, he reassured himself a moment later. He would never _not _feel guilty. He had sworn himself to her son's protection because it was the only way he could still be close to some bit of her, but his own feelings for Potter, positive or negative, were as nothing but a shadow next to her fire.

Yet…

That guilt was less than it had been, a change Severus had never experienced before. Always, he had felt the looming blackness of that emotion in the back of his mind. Always, he had known it would throw his life into gloom even if by some great enchantment and strategy he survived the war with the Dark Lord.

Yet. That shadow was not so dark now.

Somewhere between contemplating the shadow that should have been there and the one that still was, the one embodied by the silver shield mark on his right arm, Severus slid into sleep.

* * *

It was long. It was hard. Many times, he almost turned back and gave up. Simpler to stay down here, where no one would expect him to do anything.

But staying down there would be a betrayal of a friend. Either the friend who had died or the one who had come to rescue him. Which one, he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything that had happened, and he didn't really want to wake up because of that. He would have to deal with everything that made him less than sure.

But in the end, after the long struggle on the path that slipped away like sand beneath his gripping fingers, Greg opened his eyes.

He was on a shabby couch, in front of a large fire built on a hearth of dark stone. Greg sat up and looked around. This was so much like home, decay included, that for a second he thought about calling for his mum.

But then he felt something strange on his right arm, the way that he knew he had through the mist in his mind even when he was asleep, and he turned it over. There was a shield mark there. It was silver.

Greg knew he wasn't at home, then.

He sat there for a long time and stared into the fire, and then decided that he was bloody hungry and he wanted something to eat. Since no one was coming, and he didn't know where he was, but no one had attacked him yet either, he could see about getting some food. He hopped down off the couch and wandered into the room next to it.

That was just a corridor, set with doors, so Greg walked down it, opening them. He saw deserted rooms, and deserted rooms, and a library that he backed out of. Libraries were Draco's thing, not Greg's.

Draco had helped him, though. For a moment, Greg wavered, wondering if Draco would show up if Greg sat in the library until he came. But hunger was stronger, and he shut the door there, too, and continued walking.

At last he found his way to a dusty and cobwebbed kitchen. He settled down at the table in the middle and clapped his hands, the way that his mum usually called for their house-elf.

Either there wasn't a house-elf, though, or it was spelled to ignore Greg. Greg sighed, and stood up. Luckily, he had plenty of practice looking through cabinets for things to eat when their house-elf, Miti, was busy.

He found a loaf of bread under a Preservation Charm in the third cabinet he tried, and sat down to rip off chunks with his hands. It seemed his wand was gone, but it wasn't like Greg knew lots of Cutting Charms anyway. His mum had always said they were too dangerous for him.

Greg _wanted _his mum.

He could feel his lip trembling, and he filled his mouth up with bread to keep from thinking about it. He didn't want to cry. He wanted to eat. And if this was the only food they were going to offer him, then he'd keep eating.

"Gregory."

The word made Greg jerk towards the kitchen doorway. He knew the voice wasn't Draco's, but he couldn't help hoping. Draco was the one who had come to rescue him when he was at the bottom of his mind. Greg knew it, even though he couldn't really _remember _how he knew it. If he was hiding at the bottom of his mind, how could he remember things?

But it was Blaise Zabini who stood in the doorway now, watching him eat. Greg grunted and kept eating. He knew that Zabini had all those fancy manners and the posh house that was a lot nicer than his mum and dad's. That didn't matter. He wasn't the one who was Greg's friend. Greg didn't have to be nice to him.

"You must be wondering where we are, and what happened to you," Zabini went on, sliding into the room and up to the table. Greg watched him come. He supposed that he was graceful, but he didn't have any reason to be. And he kept looking at Greg and _smiling. _The only people who smiled at him like that were his parents and Draco and Vince and sometimes Mr. Malfoy. Which meant Zabini was up to something.

Vince would never get to be up to something again.

Greg stuffed enough bread in his mouth that he thought he could plug up the thoughts, and Zabini winced. Greg chewed enough to get most of the throatful down, and then grunted an acknowledgment at Zabini.

The other boy gave a sigh as this was all just too distressing for him. Maybe it was. Greg wanted to suggest that he get out of this house and go back to his mum's, but his mouth was still too full, and food was more important than speaking.

"You should know that we're bonded to Potter now," Zabini said.

Greg thought of the silver mark on his arm, and nodded. That made sense. He thought he remembered a little of that. Maybe Draco had put the knowledge there, when he came and got Greg from the bottom of his mind.

"But he's negotiated with the Ministry to try us," Zabini said, and made a little sweep with his hand around the kitchen. "In the meantime, we're staying here. This is the Black house that Potter inherited from his godfather. He made an oath that we're not going to escape from it, and none of us have wands."

Greg winced a little. He hated not having a wand. On the other hand, it would probably be worse for Zabini, because he didn't have the strength to defend himself with his hands and feet the way Greg did.

"Doesn't that _matter _to you?" Zabini demanded.

Greg thought about it, and then decided to tell the truth. No reason not to. "Not as much as food," he pointed out, and dug into the center of the loaf again. It was starting to look hollow now, and it crumbled beneath his fingers.

"You're disgusting," Zabini said, although he said it in a mutter, because he thought that way Greg couldn't hear him. Greg could have pointed out that he could hear him perfectly well, but he didn't want to. Zabini was a berk. Greg crunched through another part of the crust before Zabini lifted his head and took a deep breath. "Listen. We—we wanted to make sure that we have a chance to get free from the bond."

That made Greg put the bread aside. "No one gets free from a bond," he pointed out. "Not you. Not me. Not old Lords. If Potter's our Lord, he's our Lord for life." He thought about that, and wondered if he would like it. Maybe not with Potter. But his mum had talked a lot about the old days and the way that families like the Goyles, who had some money but not a lot, were protected by people who had them as their vassals. The whole family could be protected, as long as they swore allegiance. Greg thought he would like to have someone to take care of him. If the Ministry had arrested them, then maybe that meant he wouldn't see his parents for a long time, so _they _couldn't do it.

"But we have a chance." Zabini spoke quickly and softly. Greg blinked at him and wondered if he thought the soft tone made him sound intelligent. It didn't. "This bond is new, and accidental, and Potter's so _little_."

"He's about your size," Greg said, not understanding what Zabini was on about. Potter used to be little, but he'd shot up a bit during sixth year. He would never be Greg's size, or Weasley's, but he was closer to Draco's.

"I mean, he's little in his soul." Zabini was pressing forwards. "Petty. He doesn't know how to control Slytherins like us."

"I'm not the same as you." Greg thought he'd better point that out before Zabini did.

Zabini put his hand over his eyes and muttered something that sounded like, "Merlin give me patience." Greg thought of telling him that didn't work, because his mum often said the same thing and she never had any, but his stomach still felt empty. He dipped his hand into the loaf and scooped out some more bread.

Zabini finally dropped his hand away from his eyes and leaned forwards, saying precisely, "I know you're not the same as me. But the _point _is, you could help me and Draco win free of this bond. Potter doesn't have the strength to control us. He's dead tired right now after only performing a few magical deeds. You could help me and Draco get free. Draco's your friend, right?" he added, as if he had the right not to know that, when he'd only lived with Greg and Draco for seven years.

Greg looked at him. Something was wrong. Zabini had never cared about him. He had no reason to come and get Greg to help him if he had Draco, too. Draco was smart, and he could plan things, and if he came and told Greg to help Zabini, then Greg would do that.

Something was really wrong for Zabini to be over here talking to him.

"Who else is in the bond?" Greg asked. Zabini hadn't said there were more people, but it made sense that there were more.

Zabini frowned a little. "Well, Pansy."

Greg shrugged. Pansy had sometimes been kind to him and sometimes mean, mainly when she wanted something from Draco. She didn't matter one way or another, except that Greg would rather not hurt her because sometimes she was kind. But if Draco said to hurt her, he would.

"And Professor Snape." Zabini spoke as though he didn't think that should bother Greg, watching him from the corner of his eye. He jumped when Greg stood up and put the loaf of bread on the table.

"No," Greg said loudly.

"Listen, Goyle—"

"You're crazy," Greg told him. He could feel cold sweat on the back of his neck. Professor Snape was _strong. _Greg knew it didn't matter how hard he could punch someone when it came to Professor Snape. He had some kind of spell that would always make it so _you _were the one who got hurt. "You're crazy and you're stupid. I'm not helping you."

"Why would it be so good to be under a bond for the rest of our lives?" Zabini paced back and forth in front of the table the way Greg's dad had when he first heard the rumors of the Dark Lord's return. Zabini's eyes were fixed on Greg, though, while Greg's dad's eyes had been fixed on the Dark Mark on his arm. "Everyone acts like it's some great thing, or some _understandable _thing. Well, it's never going to be understandable for me. _Never_."

Greg frowned at him. He didn't know much about Zabini, because Zabini didn't stay around him, and he had never thought of what Zabini would be like under a bond. Greg could understand why it would bother Draco. Malfoys led all the time, and took care of other people. It would take Draco a lot of time to get used to someone leading him, instead.

"Why?" Greg asked. "What's so horrible about it?"

Zabini paused and turned around to stare at him. "Surely even _you _should be able to figure that out," he said.

Greg folded his arms. Draco had told him once that Zabini was a master of insults, and Greg had believed him because he had no particular reason to disbelieve Draco about anything. But this didn't seem like mastering insults to Greg. "I know I'm not as smart as you. I've always known that. But even I know that being under a Lordship bond means that the Lord takes care of you."

"Potter tried to _kill _me. I almost died."

Greg furrowed his forehead. That would make a difference. "What did you do?" That was one thing he knew. Lords didn't attack their vassals unless they did something, because the bond would make them suffer if they did. And no one liked pain.

Zabini made a little hiss out of the corner of his mouth like the kitten that Greg had had for a while, until his dad decided it was too much. "Nothing."

"You're lying," Greg said.

"You don't know _that_."

Greg shrugged. It just made sense. And if Zabini wouldn't tell him what he was lying about, then maybe Draco would.

Or Potter. That was a new thought to Greg. If he _had _a Lord, that meant he had someone to take care of him, the way his parents had discussed. Potter would help him and shelter him and tell him what to do. That sounded wonderful, really.

"Fine," Zabini said, his voice a low hiss. "I ran away to the Forest, because I thought there might be centaurs there who could treat the bond mark as a skin infection and destroy it. They refused to intervene, though, and Potter came after me. I tried to kill him, and the bond punished me."

Greg spent a long time staring at him. He knew Zabini wasn't stupid; he'd had it hammered into his head often enough over the course of this conversation. That meant he ought to be able to understand what it was about him that was making Greg stare.

Zabini obviously didn't, though, because his fingers started dancing a nervous little beat on the table. "What?" he asked at last.

"No wonder you want to be away from him," Greg said. "And no wonder that he doesn't like you. And no wonder that he doesn't trust you."

"So you'll help me?" Zabini leaned forwards on the balls of his feet. "Because you can understand why I want to get away from him."

"No," Greg said. "He didn't punish you. The bond punished you. You got what you deserve. Because the bond doesn't judge you like a person would do."

"Who told you that?" Zabini said, in the voice of someone who wanted to push Greg off a cliff. Greg had heard lots of that this past year, from other Death Eaters and other students.

"My mum."

"Then your mum—" Zabini paused and eyed Greg's fists. Greg looked down and saw that he was cracking his knuckles. He did that when someone insulted his family. But he wouldn't beat Zabini up unless Zabini _kept _saying it, for some reason. And he didn't look stupid to Greg no matter what he said.

"Fine," Zabini said, his voice tight and full of controlled rage, something else Greg was familiar with from Mr. Malfoy. "Then I'll do it by myself." He flounced out of the room. Greg smiled. He had only ever seen one of his uncles flounce like that, when his aunt said that his uncle couldn't have a new suit of clothes.

But then his smile faded, and Greg sat there for a while in thought.

It seemed that Professor Snape was part of the bond, and if Zabini didn't want to go and talk to him, Greg worked out slowly, that meant he must be on the _opposite _side from Zabini, and want to remain bonded to Potter. Maybe he even liked the thought of having a Lord who wouldn't treat him like shit, like Greg did.

So Greg had to go and tell him about Zabini. It was that simple.

* * *

Severus woke to a knock on his door. Of course it would be a knock, he thought, as he stood and reached for his conquered wand. He had just been relaxed, drifting off to sleep, so therefore it must be a knock.

It was more pleasant than his last waking before that, the one that had involved hooded wizards crowding into his cell and casting the Calming Charm upon him, but that was all one could say for it.

Though, Severus had to admit, he _did _enjoy the way his own eyes widened when he opened the door and saw Gregory Goyle standing in the corridor. It was good to know that some things could still surprise him.

"Mr. Goyle," Severus said, the way he would have if they were still in school. He doubted that Gregory would enjoy changing the relationship they had always had at Hogwarts, where Severus called him by his last name and affected not to notice his incredible lack of skill in Potions. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"I woke up," Gregory said, staring up at him with that stolid face that Severus suspected spoke of troll blood a few generations back. If there was anyone who could stand the smell of the things, it would be a Goyle. "And I didn't know where I was, but while I was getting some food, Zabini showed up and told me we were bonded to Potter and then he tried to get me to rebel with him and he said that you were on the other side with Potter. So I decided to be on the side that you were on."

It took Severus a moment to work that out, but when he did, he felt his face tighten. For once, Gregory didn't flinch when Severus gave him a dark look, only stood there watching him. As he had a perfect right to do, Severus had to admit. Whether he could not understand the significance of the look or only knew that it was not directed at him, Severus was grateful. He did not wish to frighten the boy away from applying to him for help.

"Thank you for reporting this information to me, Mr. Goyle," Severus said, when he thought he had his voice under control and wouldn't curse the thoughtless boy who _had _to make his life harder. "I assure you that it will be taken care of."

"You're not on his side, sir," Gregory went on, staring intently at Severus. It was the most attention Severus had ever seen him pay to anything, including to food, and that made it slightly unnerving. Severus found himself wondering if Draco had perhaps left some of his intelligence left behind when he cut through the wall of Gregory's memories. "Are you? You seem to be liking the bond."

"I can survive with it," Severus said coolly. Of course Gregory would think of the world in such simple terms, that one stood either with Zabini or against him. "That is very different than being happy it is there."

Gregory shook his head, giving Severus a stare of uncertain wonder. "But why would you not want it there? It means someone has to take care of you. Someone has to pay the price if you fall. But not you. You can do what you like, and if you're wrong, someone will tell you. You have a leader."

Severus tightened his hands on his wand, and then reminded himself again that it was hardly the boy's fault he saw the world in so simple a perspective, and Severus could be gracious. "I would prefer to make my own decisions, as you put it, Mr. Goyle," he said. "I would rather not have a Lord."

"Huh." Gregory went on staring at him for a little while, then looked around. "Can I go and sleep in any of these bedrooms?"

"Any that do not have someone in them," Severus said, still fighting down his emotions. "Avoid the locked doors and the one with wards. That is Mr. Potter's room."

"I figured," Gregory said, turning away. "And you ought to call him Lord Potter, y'know."

Severus shut the door and shut his eyes, leaning his forehead briefly against the wood of it. It was simple, and infuriating, how one not particularly intelligent child had utterly undermined what he was thinking and cast him back into doubts.

As well as waking him up.

Severus turned and stalked back to bed, determined to rest his body once more if he could not rest his mind. Gregory would think of the bond as he needed to think of it, to survive. Severus would think of it his way.

_ But in the morning, we will have a talk with Mr. Zabini, whose motives are not looking conducive to survival._


	22. Like a Dark Volcano

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Two—Like a Dark Volcano_

Draco faced the mirror that had unexpectedly been on the wall of the room he was in, and spent a moment readjusting his robes. He hadn't brought new ones with him, hadn't been _allowed _to bring new ones, so the best he could do was smooth out the creases and hope that would be enough.

Today, he intended to confront Potter.

He'd got that note under the door last night, and while he didn't really believe Professor Snape had written it, it meant that _somebody _had heard his conversation with Blaise last night. The likeliest candidate was Pansy, but that didn't matter much. What mattered was that someone knew, and all the plans he and Blaise might have come up with had fallen into the dust.

Draco appraised himself once more in the mirror, and was satisfied that not even his father could have found fault with what he saw there. Draco nodded once, rigorously, to himself, and spun to face the door.

He'd had enough of sneaking about and plans that didn't work and yielding and going along because he was too weak to do otherwise. The time had come to _confront. _The time had come to _face. _He had seen his father use the same tactics, although not often, when subtlety didn't work and political strategies were countered by other enemies who could use the same strategies as well as a Malfoy could.

So Draco was about to put a stop to things. They had gone far enough.

He opened the door, and walked out, following the slight but definite tug from the shield mark on his arm. It seemed that Potter wanted to see him as badly as Draco wanted to see Potter.

Draco smiled, glad that it felt as if his teeth were made of steel, and his stride was smooth and firm, quick, his steps striking the floor, but not as if he was in a hurry. His confrontation with Potter would go well.

Because he willed it.

* * *

Harry sighed and took another sip of the tea he'd found in one of the cabinets to make for breakfast this morning. There wasn't much else, except a mostly hollowed-out loaf of bread on the table. Harry nibbled a corner of it in one hand and studied the shield mark on his arm. He'd had worse breakfasts.

The green dots on his mark had moved in the night. Two of them now clustered tightly at one corner of the shield, the nearest one to Harry's elbow. Zabini and Draco, he knew. The two dots that represented Snape and Parkinson stood near each other on the other side, a perfect representation of conspiracy.

And the lone dot in the middle, but closer to Snape and Parkinson, could only represent Goyle. He'd woken up at last.

Which didn't explain what Harry was going to do about him, or whether the faint burn in the mark came from him or not.

But as he waited, the burn centered more and more on the green dot nearest his elbow, and he turned towards the kitchen door with the knowledge that Draco was coming closer and closer. Harry winced and set down his teacup. He wished this confrontation could have come at a later time. But if it had to happen, at least it had waited until he was awake and had eaten something.

_Not much_. But Harry had been equal to the Dursleys on less food. He ought to be the equal of someone smarter than they were with a little inside him.

Draco swept into the kitchen and paused, _posed, _really, with his arms stretching out to his sides as though he was inviting Harry to look at his clothes. Harry did. The robes were neatly pressed, probably by hand, and he looked as clean as could be expected when no one but Snape had magic at the moment. Harry folded his hands in front of him and waited.

Draco curled his lip a little, probably because the expected tirade hadn't come, and took a single sliding step towards him. "I want to hurt you for hurting my family," he said.

"I asked your father to make a sacrifice," Harry said, as quietly as he could when he wanted to shout. He was still tired and hungry and wanted to be somewhere else, but the shield mark on his arm reminded him where his duty lay.

_Is it always going to lie somewhere else? Am I going to spend the rest of my life soothing people's tempers and reminding myself not to snap because I can't get angry with my vassals?_

Harry wanted to close his eyes at that thought. He wanted to go back to bed and not get up for a long, long time.

But none of those things would change Draco standing in front of him, angry and hurt. So he continued, "The blood-ghost can't actually kill anyone except its chosen victim, which is you. It even warned me about that, but I didn't understand the warning at the time. Snape was the one who had to make it clear to me. Your father may have wounded himself to get the blood I used to track you. But the blood-ghost didn't kill him."

"Someone from the Ministry could do it." Draco was leaning forwards, tense and trembling, his hands clenching into fists at his side.

"Just like they could have broken into their cells and taken them," Harry said. "But they _didn't. _They only wanted the people actually bonded to me. I think your parents are safer at the moment than you are. People are only thinking of them as Death Eaters, not hostages they could use to control me."

"Not everything's about _you_," Draco said, and his trembling got more pronounced. "They might want to hurt them just because they were Death Eaters."

"I can't do anything about that, unless I contact Stone and request permission to leave the house and go back to the Ministry and try to do something about it," Harry said tiredly. "And the security on them will be _tight_, now. Stone is ashamed that someone managed to snatch you lot from under her nose. She'll be really firm about it not happening to your parents."

"That's not good enough." Draco was edging nearer. "They swore loyalty to you, and you're just going to abandon them?"

"It wasn't a formal oath," Harry said. He had to trust that mattered, after the ceremony Parkinson had told him to go through with Auror Stone. He braced his legs against the seat of the chair, and watched Draco. He knew that Draco was preparing to fight, and since they didn't have their wands, that meant the Muggle method.

Harry didn't want to. Not because he was afraid, but because he didn't think it would be a good thing for a lord to fight his vassal. What had happened to Zabini still haunted him.

"You should have kept your promise." Draco's voice was low and so dark that Harry had trouble distinguishing the words. They seemed to blend together, like the sounds in a tiger's growl. "And checked your words. What you said is the _wrong answer_."

He flung himself forwards.

Harry twisted the opposite way, and stood up as Draco slammed into the chair where Harry had been sitting. Harry swallowed and found his hand groping at his side, looking for his wand or at least the wand he'd taken from the wizards who had captured his vassals. He wanted some way to settle this.

And then it occurred to him, as his right arm flared like a branding iron, that he _did _have a way to settle it. Maybe a way that he'd better choose, before the Lordship bond did it for him.

He looked at Draco and put as much steel into his voice as he could, low and precise. "I rescued you. I made an oath for you. I accepted your word that you would cooperate with going to the Ministry in exchange for my protection. Stop fighting me."

Draco stared at him with his mouth hanging loose, his jaw slack. Harry felt as though he was about to fly. That was how fast his blood was going, his heart was going, and the burning on his arm had transmuted a little bit, not as painful. Maybe the bond was at least trying to reward him for doing the right thing.

Then Draco said, "Are you _mad_?" and leaped straight at him, his hand connecting with Harry's jaw.

Even as Harry's head snapped backwards, he felt the bond react, and braced himself to hear Draco's screams of pain. But nothing happened. Harry picked himself up, holding his cheek and wincing. He wondered if the bond considered just attacking him with a fist less bad than attacking him with a spell, the way Zabini had done.

Then he looked up and saw that Draco had frozen. His arm was still out, as though he was swinging back or trying to catch his balance, but his feet were rooted to the floor. His face was locked in an unnatural expression, between one true emotion and another. And the silver mark on his arm shone, dazzling.

Harry swallowed and stood up, shaking his head. He didn't know if the bond was holding Draco still so that Harry could punish him, or if it was just making sure that Draco wouldn't break the oath Harry had sworn by trying to leave.

He didn't care, in fact. He was _tired. _He had done all he could, found a way to get out of the holding cells and to the place where his vassals were being held captive against enormous odds, and all that mattered was that it got thrown back in his face, again and again. Nothing mattered to Draco, it seemed, except the ways that he could blame Harry for hurting his father.

Harry stalked up to Draco. Draco's eyes twitched once, in their sockets, to try and focus on him, but the bond's hold on him prevented even that. It was one of the more disgusting things Harry had seen.

"I'm going to find a way to break the Lordship bond," Harry said. "Today, or soon. I don't want this any more than you do. Did you think I _did_? That I _enjoyed _having a bunch of people tied to me who hated me? No. I'm going to let you go, since that's what you want so much. And I'll let you take your chances with the Ministry that you claim wants to punish your parents and wants to hurt you, too. See how well you do without my protection.

"I _hate _this. No matter what I do, it's wrong. Fine." Harry snapped his fingers, and the bond relented, nearly sending Draco staggering into the table. "Leave if you want to. I don't _care. _Shut the fuck up and _get out of my face._"

There was a weird shimmer in the air between him and Draco, something like a localized whirlwind. Then the magic shoved Draco away from Harry, and out of his path. Draco caught himself on the wall before he fell over, and proved that he could move in other ways by closing his mouth, but he didn't stop staring at Harry.

"Kreacher!" Harry called. He didn't care that it hadn't worked last night. Right now, he didn't care about anything except getting more food in him than he had already. Maybe he'd had to endure starvation when he was with the Dursleys, but he didn't now, and he _wanted _something to eat.

Kreacher promptly popped up, although with a surprised look on his face. He took a long, hard look at Harry, and then bowed and murmured, "Lord Potter is needing somethings from humble Kreacher?"

"Make me some breakfast," Harry said. "I don't care what it is, as long as it's hot and sweet. And bring it to me in the library." He turned back towards Draco and made for the door, watching Draco coldly.

He had enough sense to stay out of the way, at least. Harry gave him one more cold look and lifted his hand to touch his jaw.

"That one was free," he said. "None of the rest will be."

And he went up to the library, where he hoped idiots would leave him in _peace _for a while.

* * *

_That could have been more disastrous._

Draco stood there and stared down at his own hands. They moved now when he flexed them; they opened and turned back and forth.

And that meant he was all right. He'd thought for a second, when he felt the force gripping him and pressing down on his muscles, that he was going to simply break apart. The Lordship bond could do that if it judged that he was in need of punishment. He hadn't known that, before now, but it was hard to deny the power of something you'd literally felt in your bones.

Draco swallowed and sagged against the table.

It could have been more disastrous, but it hadn't gone _well._ He'd pictured coming in and saying something that would make Potter realize how stupid he had been, denying sanctuary and protection to Draco's parents. It would be witty, Draco knew that. It would be almost _intolerably _right and gracious and true, and Potter would redden and cast his eyes towards the floor and know himself humbled by Draco's display of eloquence.

It was the kind of thing his father would have done.

Draco had never pictured himself punching Potter, and Potter performing feats of wandless magic, wielding the bond like a whip. Draco had thought they were equal—in some senses of the word—because none of them had wands except Professor Snape. And while he was on Potter's side for the moment, Draco didn't entertain the illusions that Potter probably did. Snape wouldn't stay there, not if Draco and Blaise could show him that there was a chance of breaking free.

All of that should have happened. Draco should have made Potter stammer and apologize and promise to go and rescue his parents right away, or at least free Draco himself from the Lordship bond.

He had the last, at least. At the cost of knowing that he wasn't in control here, that Potter was a lot more powerful than he was even if they were both unarmed, and that Potter could have done a lot worse to Draco if he hadn't controlled the bond.

Draco scowled down at his hands again. That wasn't at all the way his father would have done it.

He turned around to leave the kitchen, but there was a noise like water boiling over, and Draco whipped around again. He realized a second later that it was just the house-elf clearing his throat. Apparently he'd been away from them long enough to forget what it sounded like.

"What?" he demanded.

"Master Draco Malfoy is liking some breakfast, too." The house-elf didn't make it a question. He was piling pieces of toast that looked as if they had soaked in butter on a plate in the middle of the table, and surrounding it were thick slabs of treacle tart that made Draco wrinkle his nose. Who would eat those at this time of the morning?

_Potter, apparently._

Draco bit his tongue. He wondered how long it would take him to stop running into invisible walls, to remember that Potter was the one with the power in this particular situation, and Draco had no say.

"Master Draco is sitting down and eating something," said the elf. Draco squinted, trying to remember—he'd had other things to concentrate on at the time—and decided Potter had called him Kreacher. "Kreacher is busy offering the rest to Lord Potter." He picked up another plate that also looked as if it had a cup of steaming tea on it and a smaller plate of kippers. Draco shuddered. He would have to come to _some _compromise with Potter on the matter of breakfast.

"Why?" Draco asked. "I'm not hungry." He was, actually, but while he might have to let Potter dictate some of the terms on which he lived, he wasn't about to let a house-elf do it.

Kreacher looked at him as though he couldn't believe that Draco would be that stupid. "Because you _is _being hungry, and that is being displeasing to Lord Potter," he said, and vanished with the plates.

Draco scowled at nothing. But in the end, it was silly to resist food, and he was hungry whether or not he was going to eat in front of Potter. He sat down and reached for the kettle that Kreacher had left, picking up a piece of toast with the other hand. It wouldn't be the worst breakfast he had ever had, not when it wasn't under the supervision of the Dark Lord.

Now and then, he rubbed his arm. The shield mark wasn't cold or burning now. It was vibrating gently instead, like a hive of bees touched from the outside. Draco assumed that meant Potter was busy.

_With breakfast? With finding a way to break the bond? _

Draco finished his tea and his first piece of toast, and sighed. His chance to be taken into Potter's confidence was probably gone for now.

* * *

Greg turned into the library the minute he passed it. He knew there might be food in the kitchen, but the point was, there were the smells of tea and toast coming out of the library, and it was one less flight of stairs to walk down.

Potter sat in a chair with a big book in his lap. Greg glanced at him, and then at the food on the table in front of him, and frowned. If it was here, it was probably Potter's food. Greg knew that there was something specific you were supposed to do to ask permission from your Lord to eat, but he couldn't remember what it was.

"Hullo." Potter was staring at him in surprise. Greg looked up at him again. "When did you wake up?"

Greg looked back at him, more than a little grateful. That was a simple question. That meant he could answer it. "Yesterday night," he said. "My Lord. I ate a little bread and went to my room." He thought a second, and then decided that if he could tell Professor Snape about this, he could tell his Lord. Maybe Potter even needed to know about it, because he might not know that Zabini hated him that much. "Zabini tried to get me to rebel with him, but I told him no."

Potter's mouth fell open a little. Then he sat up and nodded, as though Greg had told him something he'd already known. Greg winced. He knew the Dark Lord had punished his father when that happened. He hoped Potter wouldn't punish him.

But Potter just said, "If you only ate bread last night, you must be hungry. Help yourself." He waved at the plate.

Greg had to smile at him as he walked towards the table, even though he'd never done that before. Potter was _nice. _It wasn't every Lord that would give you treacle tart. His mum had said that once, when she caught him eating it for breakfast.

Here, he got to have it for breakfast with no one bothering him. That was already better than a lot of things he'd thought about.

"Why did Zabini think you could help him?" Potter asked. He was watching Greg eat, but without flinching and looking away the way even Draco sometimes did. Maybe he'd already eaten that way himself. The table said so. "You just woke up."

Greg nodded, realized his mouth was full, and swallowed it down before he spoke. "Because he wants people to rebel against you, and I didn't know much about you since I just woke up. So he picked me because I was convenient." He knew that being convenient meant a lot. It was why he had ended up helping most of Draco's plans last year.

Potter tapped a finger against his jaw, then winced. Greg leaned in and narrowed his eyes. He didn't know a lot, but he knew what you looked like when someone beat you up, and there was the mark of a fist on Potter's jaw.

"Who beat you up?" he asked. It couldn't have been Professor Snape. He would have used his wand. And Pansy only thought she punched that hard.

Potter looked up, eyes narrowed as though he had decided to be disgusted again. "Draco," he said.

Greg stared at the food in his hands. He wondered if he should be eating it. Draco had always been his leader, and if Draco was fighting with Potter, then Greg should walk away and join Draco, and that meant leaving the food here.

But…it was good food. And he was so hungry.

"Why did Draco punch you?" Greg asked. He didn't know if he could understand the answer—sometimes he never did when Mr. Malfoy explained things, and Draco was like that, too—but he could see if he did.

Potter continued to watch him. Greg drew himself up and glared back. Sure, he was pretty stupid, but Potter wasn't even _trying _to explain. And Greg knew a little about how Gryffindors thought, too. They were supposed to try and see if things would work even when they probably wouldn't.

"Because he believes that I hurt his family," Potter said, his voice blank, like Mr. Malfoy's. "I did what I could to rescue you, but he still takes it that way."

Greg thought as hard as he could. It was all mixed up with the memories of the bottom of his mind, and Vince dying, but he told himself not to think about that, and so he didn't. "You did it to rescue us?" he asked. That was the important thing, he decided, the most important thing.

"Yes," Potter said. "I had—I had Mr. Malfoy send me some blood, and I smeared that on the bond mark, and I used that to track Draco."

Greg blinked. He didn't know everything that had happened while he was asleep, but he knew one thing. "Then you did it to rescue all of us," he said. "Because I was with Draco, and they took all of us, didn't they?" He didn't know whether that was a guess or intelligence or something he remembered, but he was sure it was right.

Potter nodded, looking puzzled about where Greg was going.

"Then you did what a Lord was supposed to do," Greg said. He could eat again. Potter might be doing complicated things, but he did uncomplicated ones, too. He had given Greg food, and he had rescued him. "Maybe Draco doesn't like it. I think Draco wants to be a Lord himself. But you're the Lord. So he should just shut up and listen to you."

Potter blinked several times, then smiled at him. "Maybe you're right," he said. "But I learned today that I can make the bond do things when I really want them to. So now I'm just looking up ways to make the bond dissolve itself."

Greg was so afraid he dropped his toast on his hand. Then he picked it up and ate it again. But he did say, after he finished it, "Then you won't be our Lord anymore."

Potter nodded at him. "That's the way Draco wants it."

"But that's because he wants to be a Lord himself," Greg said. He leaned forwards. He had to make Potter see. "I don't want to be. I want to stay with you. I want someone to protect me. Please?"

Potter closed his eyes and sat there as if Greg was asking him a hard question. Greg didn't see what was so hard about it. _He _would have known the answer if someone had asked him.

But Potter wasn't saying no right now. So Greg held his breath, and waited, and hoped.


	23. Speak of the Willing

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Twenty-Three—Speak of the Willing_

Harry sighed and took another bite of treacle tart, because he felt he needed it. Goyle didn't even glance at the plate Harry had picked it up from, though. He just sat watching Harry, more than ever like a dog.

Harry was starting to wonder how Draco had coped with the responsibility of leading _two _people this dependent. At the moment, he could almost find it in him to be grateful for the rebellion that Zabini seemed intent on having. That seemed more natural to him than what Goyle wanted from him.

"You realize that you could do other things?" Harry asked, willing himself to keep his face and his body calm, so as not to reject Goyle right away.

Goyle's brow wrinkled. "You mean, lead myself?" He sounded more than faintly horrified at the idea.

"Well, you could still have friends to help you," Harry said. "But you could live on your own and have a career of your own as long as you're free of the bond. If it keeps existing, then you might never have freedom to do as you like."

He thought that last statement would probably be the most persuasive to a Slytherin, but Goyle's brow cleared even as he watched, and he shook his head at Harry with an indulgent little smile. "Oh, no," he said. "I know that I'm not good on my own. And I don't have any friends except Draco. If he's under the bond, I should be, too."

Harry kept from bowing his head into his hands and tugging at his hair, but it was a heroic effort. He stood up and shoved one of the books he held across the table to Goyle. Goyle looked at it, but without interest.

"This says that Lord bonds can get corrupt," Harry said, and he tried to sound serious enough that Goyle would pay attention no matter what. "The Lord likes more and more control. He likes making people do things. I don't feel that way right now, but lots of Lords do. I might get that way later. The bond—it _changes _things."

Goyle frowned at him again, but said, "It hasn't changed me. I know that I want a leader, and that's true." He ate another piece of treacle tart. Harry thought he was waiting to say something, and then realized the conversation, as far as Goyle was concerned, was over with, when he added innocently, "What's for dinner?"

"Lunch," Harry said automatically, then sighed. "Being in a bond really doesn't matter to you."

Goyle puffed up. "Of course it matters! It means I have someone to protect me and tell me what to do." He looked at the book again. "And read for me. Draco never made me read, you know." He glanced up at Harry with liquid eyes like a puppy's. Harry thought he might just have found the reason that Goyle had been Sorted into Slytherin.

Harry collapsed back into his chair. "But I promised the others…" Then he trailed off. If he could make the bond more flexible, take control of it and tell it what to do, then maybe he could tell it to free some of his vassals but leave others under the bond. Being responsible for one person still wasn't ideal, but it would be better than five.

He turned back to the books in front of him. He hadn't found anything like that so far, but then, he hadn't exactly been looking for it. If he _could _find something like that, then he would have to learn how to practice it as soon as possible.

* * *

Greg licked a few crumbs from his fingers and watched Potter. He supposed he should think of him as Lord Potter. It would take him a little while to get used to that, though. It had taken a while to get used to thinking of Mr. Malfoy as Mr. Malfoy, too. He had wanted to call him Lord Malfoy.

Potter kept bending over the books as if they would tell him something. Maybe they would. Books never seemed to tell Greg much of anything, but he knew other people could hear their voices.

Potter looked up. Greg froze in reaching for the next plate on the table. Maybe Potter was going to tell him that he couldn't have any more.

But Potter just shook his head as though he wanted to reassure Greg, and then said, "Have you ever heard of someone with a lot of vassals only having a few vassals later?"

Greg thought about that as hard as he could. His favorite stories had been the ones about Lords, and his mum had told them over and over again, because they were her favorite stories, too. Finally, he nodded.

"There was Lady Bersalla," he said. "She had ten vassals at the beginning, but two of them died, and she released three. So she had five at the end." He was proud of himself for keeping the numbers in order. It had been a long time since he heard that story.

Potter tapped his fingers on his knees and looked intent. "How did she release them?"

Greg said, "Shhh. I have to think of the story, and then I'll know." He knew he couldn't do this if Potter was asking him questions all the time, and interrupting his memory.

Potter stayed quiet. Maybe he really wanted to know the story, too. Greg leaned further and further back into the couch, and shut his eyes so hard that he saw little stars dancing on the backs of the lids. He knew that meant he was close to seeing the memory.

And then he heard his mum's voice speaking into his ears, slow and gentle, telling him the tale of Lady Bersalla.

"She became Lady because several other pure-blood families came to her and asked her to," Greg whispered, still concentrating as hard as he could. He could _do _this. He could tell Potter the truth and content him, and if he was good to him, then Potter would keep being his Lord. That was the bargain, Greg knew. You did things for Lords, and they protected you. "They were all dying. They didn't have any children, and they had lots of enemies. They knew that Lady Bersalla was a powerful witch. So they sheltered under her, and she cast the spell that meant they were her vassals."

Potter stirred—Greg could hear it—but he didn't interrupt, so Greg went on telling the story. "She promised that she would protect them, and she would bear three children. One of the children would be her heir. The other two children would become the heirs of two of the pure-blood families. The other families were so old and dying that they didn't want heirs, because they wouldn't live to raise them."

"I have to have _children_?" Potter sounded horrified, which Greg thought was weird. Didn't he always want children? That was what Greg's mum said, anyway. She said Potter must be so lonely because he didn't have any members of his family left. So he would want children once he came to the wizarding world and found a proper witch to have them with.

"I'm telling the story," said Greg sternly, which was the same thing his mum always said right now. He didn't know if he should talk to his Lord that way, but he did know that he would forget the story if Potter kept on going like this.

Potter subsided into grumbling. That meant Greg could keep going. He took a deep breath, and did it.

"The families were content with the bargain. But one of them decided that Lady Bersalla wouldn't keep her word, because she didn't get pregnant for two years. So they told her to release them. And Lady Bersalla did it."

"What _was _the way she did it?"

Greg paused, then sighed and opened his eyes. "The story doesn't say. I need to write to my mum, my Lord. She would know."

Potter sounded tired. "Please write to her. Tell her that you're all right and anything else she needs to know." He paused, and then added, "Do you think your parents might be home right now? Or would they be somewhere else?"

"I don't know." Greg clasped his hands in front of him, wincing. His Lord had asked him one question, _one _question, and already he couldn't answer it. "I don't know where they are right now." He thought his dad might have been fighting with the Dark Lord, but Greg hadn't seen him, and he had no idea where his mum was.

"Hey, it's okay." Potter's hand was suddenly on his shoulder, Potter's face in his. Greg started a little, and was glad that he didn't bring his hands up in a defensive maneuver after all, the way he _almost _had. "I didn't mean to make you upset. We'll handle this somehow." Potter leaned back and bit his lip, and then stood up fully and nodded decisively. "I'll write to your mum, but I'll also ask the others. If one person knows something about releasing Lordship bonds, then the others should, too."

Greg caught his hand. "But you won't make me leave?"

Potter looked down at him, and there were all sorts of complex expressions on his face. Greg didn't understand them. He hoped that Potter wouldn't make him try. Things in general were too complicated for Greg. This would just make them harder. It was easiest if he could let someone else take them over.

_What's going to happen when Draco wants to take them over?_

But Greg rejected the thought. So far, Draco _hadn't _come to him and asked to take them over. So Greg was free to do as he wanted, and what he wanted right now was to stay with the Lord that fate had given him.

His mum said that fate wasn't often kind, but it was, right now.

Potter reached down and squeezed his shoulder. "I won't make you leave," he said, and even though he was a Gryffindor and his voice shook a little and Greg didn't have any reason to trust him, he did now.

* * *

"I need to know what you know about releasing Lordship bonds."

Severus leaned back in his chair at the kitchen table and regarded the ceiling. There was an interesting crack running from one side of it to the other that he had never noticed in the meetings of the Order of the Phoenix. He resisted the temptation to reach up and run his hand along it.

"Snape? Are you listening to me?"

Severus snapped his head down. "It is _Severus_," he said. "If you are going to refuse to address me by a term of respect."

Potter paused, looking as foolish as he could no longer afford to look, his hand on the door. Then he sighed and rubbed his jaw, wincing as he did it. Severus wondered if he had hit his absurd neck against a pillow and weakened it. "Sorry. Between Draco wanting to be free of the bond and Greg wanting to stay in it and thinking that someone knows a way to weaken the bond but not actually finding it, it's been a busy morning."

"I am glad that Gregory is awake," Severus said, warming his hands on the teacup. "But you just now spoke of them both by their first names. I would appreciate the same courtesy."

"I didn't think you would think it was courtesy," Potter said slowly, and sat down across from him. "But anyway, Greg said that his mum used to tell him stories about bonds and how some Lords or Ladies could release them and let vassals go free. I wondered if you'd heard of some of the same stories."

Severus could answer that, or he could pursue what was the most important matter of the darkening bruise on Potter's jaw, and he chose to do what was practical. "Who hit you?"

Potter flushed and promptly covered his jaw with one hand. "It was Draco," he said, at least meeting Severus's eyes without any silly attempt to hide. "But I don't think that's what matters here—"

"Why would you think that?" Severus leaned forwards. "Not only are you injured, which may reduce your effectiveness to do research and fight for us, but the bond could have punished Draco."

Potter met his eyes steadily. "All it did was make him stand still, and then it moved him when I told him to get out of the way. It was actually a good thing, because after that, I started thinking the bond might be more flexible than I knew and it was possible to command it to do things. The bond will protect me, and if I can release it, then I can let Draco and Zabini go." He tapped a finger on the table. "That's why I want to know if you know any stories about someone releasing the bond. It might be days or weeks before Mrs. Goyle can get back to us. Greg admitted that he didn't know where she was."

Severus touched his forehead, and then his right arm and his left arm, marking the source of all his various problems. "If you begin to think and believe that it was a _good _thing for one of your vassals to hit you, then that might influence the bond's response to later situations, ones that are more violent," he said harshly. "Did you not _think _of that, Potter? That you might change the balance of power between you and your vassals? The bond can only react to protect you if you want to be protected!"

"That's not something you said before," Potter protested, lifting his chin. "How was I supposed to know that? There are all these things that suddenly people are telling me, but I didn't know them before!"

Severus regained his breath and control of his temper with some difficulty. "I want you to demand an apology from Draco," he said. "And I am thinking less of the effect on Draco and more of the one on Mr. Zabini," he added, when Potter opened his mouth. "If Zabini thinks Draco can get away without punishment, then he may try something else again."

"And then the bond would punish him," Potter echoed again, looking miserable. "All right. I'll talk to him." He turned around, probably hearing, as Severus had begun to a few moments ago, the footsteps on the stairs. He seemed to brace himself, probably wondering if it would be an ordeal to make Draco apologize.

But Pansy stepped into the kitchen instead, nodded to both of them, and came over to fetch a cup of tea herself, asking, "Then I suppose you know that Zabini and Draco are plotting against both of you? They were having a conversation about how Zabini should come up with a way to fight you, sir, and then Draco would join him in executing the plan and fighting Potter."

Potter leaned forwards and placed his head on the table.

Severus was terribly afraid that he might feel like doing the same thing himself. He prepared his tea with cold fingers, then leaned back and looked Pansy in the eye. "You are sure of this?" Pansy, her mouth full of bread and butter, nodded, and Severus sighed. "How?"

"I overheard them last night, of course." Pansy swallowed and leaned back in her chair, regarding them with interest. "Are you going to challenge them to a duel?"

Potter opened his mouth. God knew what he would have said to that, but Severus could guess that it would be some more dunderheaded maundering about how he couldn't fight people, he was their Lord, and the bond would give him an unfair advantage. He spoke before he and Pansy, the only sensible members of the bonded group right now, could be asked to listen to it. "A duel would be unwise. It would give them too much acknowledgment, put them on a footing with you that you do not want them on."

Pansy, of course, understood him at once, since she was a Slytherin, and cocked her head. "True. I didn't think of that."

"What kind of footing would it put them on?" Potter asked, and his voice was high and haughty, his eyes fixed on Severus as though he wondered what could possibly come out of his mouth good enough to justify arguing against a duel.

"It would treat them as equals," Severus said. "They are not."

"I _won't _listen to you talking about how Lords are worth more or something," Potter snapped. "That's not the kinds of tales of Lords I came here to listen to."

"You _fool_." Severus poured contained power into the word, and noticed that the mark on his right arm was not burning. That was an excellent indication that he was performing his function as Shield at the moment, he thought, protecting Potter against the consequences that might happen if he went ahead and listened too much to his instincts. "You are _not our equal. _You have greater power than we do. I have a wand, but you could force me to hand that over to you. By all the laws and customs of pure-blood tradition, you have the right to demand it. You have not, but I know it is because you choose to grant me the grace of retaining it. And you have the power of the bond that protected you from Draco this morning. Nothing can match that. You could break my arm before I could cast against you, were I so stupid as to attempt it. You think we are _all the same_?"

"I just meant—we're all worth the same."

Potter sounded terribly, terribly bewildered. Severus shook his head. "There may be a way to release the bond. But unless and until it happens, no, we are not equals. We are vassals and Lord."

Potter took a deep breath and seemed to sink into himself. Severus hoped it was _communion _with himself, that he could see the sense of what Severus and Pansy were saying, and come out of this more ready to fight.

Pansy caught his eye. Severus shook his head. He did not think they ought to interrupt. Potter would agree with them, or he would not. In the end, although they might have advantages in attempting to persuade Potter that the others did not, what Severus had said held true for them as well. They were the vassals, and he the Lord.

Pansy scowled mildly and watched Potter with concealed eagerness, opening her mouth to speak before Severus thought she ought to do so. But then it turned out that she was doing it as Potter looked up, and at the sight of his eyes, she interrupted herself.

There was a flame in Potter's eyes, and his hands clenched in front of him as he forced himself out of the chair. Severus stood up with him, keeping a wary gaze on him. He distrusted the mood change. Potter might have gone from determined to treat everyone like a happy Gryffindor to treating them like an angry Gryffindor.

"Ask Zabini and Malfoy to come here, please," Potter told Pansy, the sound of his voice windy and distant.

Pansy bowed a little and scurried off. Severus watched Potter. Potter was not watching him back. Instead, he looked at the far wall, and his breathing was soft and rapid.

"What will you do?" Severus asked at last.

"Tell them that I'm aware of their plans, that I'm working on a way to release the bond—if anyone can _tell me how_—" for a moment, Severus heard the snarl of balked desire in the back of his voice "—and that fighting against me would be stupid. They shouldn't want to be free until after the trials, anyway. What would Draco's protection be, with his parents cooped up? And I don't have any idea what Zabini's mother's status is."

Severus raised his eyebrows and nodded. "If you can present it that calmly and reasonably, you stand a chance of convincing them."

"I hope so." Potter turned back towards the stairs, folding his arms and seeming to shield himself in an invisible cloak of dignity and power. Severus cocked his head. He could not believe that he was using such terms of James's son.

_What about Lily's?_

Severus had to shake his head a minute later, though. No, he had never dreamed even of a child of Lily's, or Lily herself for that matter, doing this. Lily had been Muggleborn, reared in a world that had long ago decided Lordships were defunct, at least in the manner the wizarding world constructed them. She would have wanted to free her vassals, and she might not have been able to reconcile herself to the necessity of an ultimatum.

But this young man, who had stood before the Wizengamot, could.

Severus was eager to see what he did next.

* * *

Draco followed Pansy into the kitchen with a determinedly calm face. He had expected punishment sooner than this, really, for the punch he had given Potter earlier. Blaise, beside him, was walking with a stiffer neck and an apparent ambition to say to Potter exactly what he thought of him. It was the only reason Draco could imagine that he would look _eager._

_The more he refuses to look, the harder he will fall._

But Draco couldn't worry about Blaise right now. He had to worry about what Potter would do to him instead, and he hoped that he could do something to soften matters if he took a step into the kitchen and bowed.

Potter stood there like a—well, like a young Lord, really, Draco thought, with his arms folded and the bond drawn up around him. Currently, it wasn't making the mark on Draco's arm flare, and it must not be doing it with Blaise, either, if he could still stand there and appraise Potter the way he was doing.

"I will say this once," Potter said, quietly, but with more force than if he had shouted. "I am working on a way to release the bond. It will take some time, since at least one of my other vassals wants to remain with me."

_Greg, _Draco thought. _It has to be Greg. _He wanted to swallow, to ask why Greg hadn't come to him and asked for protection, but he was afraid that he knew the answers already. So he stayed silent.

"In the meantime," Potter said, "fighting against me would be the stupidest thing you could do. You'll need protection from the Ministry, and they have no reason to give you fair trials if you're not my vassals. The promises that Auror Stone made me for their protection were to _me, _not anyone else." He was looking at Draco. "The best chance for your parents, for your families, is if you have someone else's protection until the trials are done."

Draco nodded jerkily. He couldn't deny what Potter said when it came to _him_, though whether Potter had really done anything to protect his parents was more debatable. And he would debate it.

Later.

"I need information on how to release a bond," Potter said, his eyes narrowing. "Greg told me a story about a Lady named Bersalla, but he didn't know how she released the bond. I need to know if you have any information on that."

"I do," Blaise said.

Draco eyed him cautiously sideways. He'd thought Blaise would have volunteered that earlier if he had it. On the other hand, Blaise's mother knew all sorts of esoteric things, and had passed them down to her son. Maybe he just hadn't made the connection until now.

"You have my permission to tell me," Potter said.

Blaise's eyes shone. He took a step forwards.

Draco's eyes widened. He knew that look on Blaise's face. He had seen it when Blaise was getting ready to confront Death Eaters, and when he'd had particularly severe detention, and exams he wasn't sure he could pass. It was the look he wore when he intended to fling himself at a problem and wear it down that way.

And he saw something else: the gleam of a knife in Blaise's hand.

He opened his mouth, but the bond reacted before he could, and the kitchen filled with dazzling light.

Followed, a second later, by the smell of cooking flesh.


End file.
